Skip to main content

Baltimore Blues and Charm City by Laura Lippman















Baltimore Blues was an Ellen Emerson White recommendation I am extremely glad I followed up on. I got it for Christmas and saved it for the work trip to Florida I took last week. I ended up spending seven hours sitting in airports so it was a good thing I had such an engrossing read with me. Although the result was an instant and urgent need to find a bookstore in Orlando (a shockingly difficult task, more on that later) to get my hands on the sequels. Eventually I managed to do this and I've been on a Laura Lippman binge ever since. I'll be reviewing the whole series as I finish them, so I figured I'd combine a couple titles here and there.

Baltimore Blues introduces the reader to Tess Monaghan, former newspaper reporter turned odd-job girl. Tess is a native Baltimorean and the city itself is without a doubt a main character in these novels. Lippman's love for and knowledge of Baltimore saturates every line--a real treat for readers who love ambiance and a real insider look into a city or region. Unemployed Tess is a creature of habit, filling up her time rowing on the Patapsco, eating breakfast at Jimmy's, mooching off her Aunt Kitty, and avoiding dinner with her disapproving, disappointed parents. Danger disrupts Tess' routine when she agrees to unofficially investigate a good friend's fiancee. A simple bout of snooping leads to a full-blown murder case and Tess soon finds herself fighting to clear her friend's name and watch her own back at the same time.

Charm City picks up a few months after the events of Baltimore Blues. Tess is still living above her Aunt Kitty's bookshop, and the endearing musician/bookseller Crow seems to have worn down some of Tess' reservations about a possible relationship. She's even relented enough to accept a job as an apprentice investigator for the curmudgeonly lawyer/rowing instructor Tyner. But this unusually "normal" period doesn't last long, as the editors of the Beacon-Light hire Tess to investigate a case of a reporter undermining the system, publishing a controversial article that was never meant to run. In no time, the subject of the article turns up dead. An apparent suicide. Tess follows the trail through the ranks of the newspaper, convinced the suicide was, in fact, murder. Several secondary characters get some great fleshing out in this second volume, notably Tess' best friend (and crack reporter) Whitney and the always awesome Crow. I am now completely hooked on this series and thrilled to find there are, count them, seven more to go and a brand new installment coming out in March. Bring on the fun.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous6:19 PM

    You're reading nine of Lippman's books in a row? That's nine books that are guaranteed good.

    I hope you're also going to read the non-Tess standalones, which are also awesome. Some (okay, most) mystery authors, I don't bother with their non-series books, but Lippman is just so consistently good that I'll read anything she writes.

    Trisha

    ReplyDelete
  2. Angiegirl12:06 PM

    Yep. I couldn't deny myself the rare pleasure of all of them in a row.

    I'd been wondering how her non-series books were. I'm like you, Trisha. So thanks to your recommendation, I'll definitely pick them up.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You Might Also Like

Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

I can't quit Jennifer Echols . Not that I really try that hard, but I read her new ones and often feel as though I'm still searching for that one in possession of that certain something that will make me feel the way  Going Too Far did. Like I couldn't put it it down. And definitely like I didn't hate either of the main characters after the fact. Well, I found it with Such a Rush . I read this 300+ pager in a single night, which clears up the question of whether or not I couldn't put it down. And I finished it definitely not hating either of the main characters. I didn't finish it loving them both unreservedly, though. I loved Leah with my whole heart from page one and that never changed. My feelings regarding one of the Hall brothers remain complicated. More to come on this in a bit. On a side note, I'm delighted that Such a Rush is Ms. Echols' hardcover debut. It's a meticulously designed book, a pleasure to hold in my hands as I stayed up way
22 comments
Read more

Bibliocrack Review | The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

 Hi. Hey. Hello there. It's been a . . . well, you know what it's been. We're all still living this together. So I will simply skip to the fact that I couldn't not review this book here. Because reading it was something special. I knew nothing about Ali Hazelwood 's debut novel except that it involved women in STEM and that the cover made me smile. I decided to set it aside for myself as a reward. Work has been . . . punishing . . . for the last year, and I have been so exhausted every hour of every day. And so I determined to buy The Love Hypothesis  on release day knowing nothing about it. But when I went to the bookstore to get my copy, none were available. In fact, none were available anywhere for love nor money, in store or online. At first I was moderately disappointed. Then I told myself maybe it's not that great after all and I didn't necessarily need to feel this preemptive sense of loss. But it kept gnawing at me. The loss. And so I paused work an
4 comments
Read more

Review | Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

It really is a pretty cover. And dragons. I love them so.  It's been far too long since I've read a book in which dragons played any kind of primary character role. They do here, and they are probably my favorite aspect of this book. But more on that later. It's probably worth noting that I, like the rest of the world, was aware of Fourth Wing and the collective losing of BookTok's mind over it. I mean, it was kind of thrilling to hear that you couldn't find a copy anywhere—in the sense that I love it when books are being consumed and loved. And when that happens in such a way that it takes publishing by surprise (for lack of a better way to phrase it) so much so that they have to scramble to print more. So I did the sensible thing and bought the ebook. And then I proceeded to do the not-so-sensible-but-extremely-Angie thing and not read it. There was a cross-country move tucked in there somewhere between the buying and the reading, but more on that at a later date
Post a Comment
Read more