Bücher der Reihe Tess Monaghan Novel

New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman plunges Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan into a twisted and disturbing case.Tess Monaghan has encountered almost every possible criminal motive throughout her career: greed, revenge, jealousy, rage. But there are crimes that defy all attempts at understanding, where a search for motive seems pointless.Melisandre Harris Dawes committed such a crime. Found not guilty by reason of insanity, she fled the country, leaving her two daughters with their father. Twelve years later, she's back in Baltimore, and Tess is asked to provide security detail while Melisandre films a documentary about her attempts to reconcile with her now teenaged children.Tess, juggling work with caring for her demanding toddler, is uneasy about the case. Still, Melisandre's lawyer is family. And there is something about the woman herself--confident, beautiful, shrewdly intelligent--that draws Tess in. Is she a master manipulator or someone who was driven to temporary madness? Cold and calculating, or a mother concerned for her daughters' well being? Someone is leaving Melisandre enigmatic, threatening notes. Soon Tess, insecure about her parenting abilities and receiving cryptic messages of her own, isn't sure whether she should be protecting Melisandre from harm--or protecting everyone else from Melisandre.When Melisandre becomes the prime suspect in a murder, Tess must uncover the truth. Doing so will mean confronting her deepest beliefs about what separates good parents from bad, madness from sanity, and what lengths even the most rational person will go to, to protect what they cherish most.

New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan takes on the case of a notorious former vigilante--and finds herself embroiled in a case with far-reaching consequences where the truth is as dangerous as the lies she uncovers. . . .PI Tess Monaghan doesn't expect her first case in her new private investigation practice in Baltimore's neighborhood of Butchers Hill to come in the form of Luther Beale--an ex-con who was sent to prison for shooting Donnie Moore, a boy who vandalized his car five years earlier. The former vigilante, who became known as the Butcher of Butchers Hill, wants Tess to find Treasure and Destiny Teeter, Salamon Hawkings, and Eldon Kane--the other kids who witnessed his crime--so he can finally make amends. His motives seem genuine to Tess who thinks he's an old man who made a terrible, tragic mistake. Yet others don't see it that way and think Luther is simply evil and should have never been released from prison.But not long after Tess begins her search, Treasure and Destiny Teeter are found murdered. Could Luther have been responsible for their deaths? Is that the real reason why he wanted Tess to find them? But just when her doubts about her client surface, Luther makes a shocking revelation that puts everything into question. As Tess soon learns, the more she digs, the more complicated this case becomes as she must decide whether her client was capable of killing Treasure and Destiny and if he's telling her the complete truth about Donnie Moore's shooting.But Tess doesn't have a lot of time for a killer who's waiting to strike again--a killer whose sights are now set on Tess.

New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman spins a spellbinding novel of suspense in which PI Tess Monaghan must turn to the past to solve a murder in the present. . . .PI Tess Monaghan thought she'd seen the last of her ex-boyfriend Ed Crow when they ended their relationship. But when she receives a newspaper clipping with a photo of Crow and the headline "IN BIG TROUBLE," she's reluctantly pulled into looking for him and heads to Austin, Texas?the last place he was seen. Searching the house where Crow was staying, Tess stumbles on more than she bargained for when she finds the body of an ex-convict whose face has been blown off with a rifle.Now, with the local sheriff breathing down her neck for answers, Tess knows she has to find Crow?and fast?before the cops locate him. As she attempts to track him down and meets Emmie Sterne, the singer in Crow's band, Tess immediately senses something's off with the blonde, blue-eyed stunner. Tess has no doubt that Crow is innocent?but the company he's been keeping is questionable, even if she is easy on the eyes.Determined to find Crow and make sure he isn't in any danger, Tess investigates and soon discovers she hardly knows the man she thought she knew. But more troubling, she realizes she still has feelings for him. And when another corpse surfaces, Tess must find out the connection between the two murders and Emmie's dark past . . . and if a killer lurks behind that pretty face.

When private investigator Tess Monaghan literally runs into the crew of a fledgling TV series while sculling, she expects sharp words and evil looks, not an assignment. But the company has been plagued by a series of disturbing incidents since their arrival on location in Baltimore. Worried for the safety of the young female lead, they ask Tess to serve as her bodyguard/babysitter. In the past, Tess has had enough trouble guarding her own body; keeping a spoiled movie princess under wraps may be more than she can handle. But the fish-out-of-water p.i. is abruptly pulled back in by an occurrence she's all too familiar with?murder. Suddenly the wall of secrets is in danger of toppling, leaving shattered dreams, careers, and lives scattered among the ruins?a catastrophe that threatens the people Tess cares about...and the city she loves.