It's murder in Baltimore these days - and Tess herself might be next on the list . . .
As a practised reporter until her newspaper went to that great pressroom in the sky, PI Tess Monaghan knows and loves every inch of her native Baltimore. It's a quirky city where baseball reigns, but lately homicide seems to be the second most popular local sport. Business tycoon 'Wink' Wynkowski is trying to change all that by bringing pro basketball back to town, and everybody's rooting for him - until a devastating, muckraking expose of his lurid past appears on the front page of the Baltimore Beacon-Light. It's a surprise even to the newspaper's editors, who thought they'd killed the piece. Instead, the piece killed Wink, who's found in his garage with the car running. Tess is hired to find the unknown computer hacker who planted the lethal story - but it doesn't take long for her to discover deeper, darker secrets . . .
Before becoming a full-time novelist, Laura Lippman was a newspaper reporter for many years. She has won just about every crime writing award going, including the Anthony Award and non genre awards for Literary Excellence. She lives in Baltimore with her partner, the writer David Simon, and their daughter.