Baltimore Blues

Rating:
Summary: Compelling and witty book
Review: I really like this author's voice. She's witty and smart and just pulled me along to the end. I particularly like the way she brought baltimore alive.

Rating:
Summary: thank you laura
Review: i'm so glad i was given a copy of this book. as a native baltimoron, now living in san francisco, i was stoked to read such a wonderful mystery that takes places in and around real places i know and love in my home town. this book is just as wonderful for non-baltimorons. i must admit, the second in the series, "charm city", although quite good, did not live up to the first book. no worries, the following two, "butcher's hill" and "in big trouble", are amazing. i just received the newest in the series, "the sugar house" (i must be crazy about the series to actually blow the extra cash to buy it in had cover). i look forward to cruising through it on my upcoming flight to baltimore. thanks again laura. my only regret is that i'll never get to buy a cocktail for the extrordinary tess monahan during one of my occasional drunken evenings in fells's point or south balto.

Rating:
Summary: You'll love her brave, spunky, flawed heroine.
Review: If you like a mystery with an intriguing protagonist, read Laura Lippman. Her heroine is deliciously flawed, smart, unself-aware, brave and fun, and comes surrounded by an ensemble of equally interesting pals, relatives and enemies. What is the book about? Rowing and rivalry and rage. About ability and disability and personal bests. About the poison of secrets. The real star of the book, though, is Baltimore. The book has such a strong and varied sense of place that I can't wait to go there, and I know that when I arrive, it will seem like an old friend. I'll read anything Laura will write, and only regret she doesn't publish two books a year.

Rating:
Summary: Ms. Lippman excutes a perfect 10 in her Baltimore thriller
Review: Laura Lippman is truly a great writer and seems to love Baltimore as shown by her Baltimore Blues. If you read this you will understand many of the unknown facets of Baltimore from the BRC to Squires. Baltimoreans especially can see the whole book being played out since they know all of the places mentioned and the book flows like a rower who has a perfect race.

Rating:
Summary: A cool thriller with a Baltimore Inner Harbor setting.
Review: Ms. Lippman writes some of the most intelligent, funny, strong characters I've read in a long time. The Baltimore setting makes her books a nice answer to her competitor, Lisa Scottoline, who does similar books set in Philly.

Rating:
Summary: Great Mystery Series
Review: My friend turned me onto this series and I love it! If you are from the Maryland area, you will recognize a lot of the landmarks, but if you're not from the area you'll still love the book. It is a well written story with fabulous characters.

Rating:
Summary: Great Mystery Series
Review: My friend turned me onto this series and I love it! If you are from the Maryland area, you will recognize a lot of the landmarks, but if you're not from the area you'll still love the book. It is a well written story with fabulous characters.

Rating:
Summary: I found a new writer.
Review: Saw this on TV (maybe sunday morning). Read it in 4 or 5 days - (when i should have been doing other things and was) - I look forward to the others and am off to buy charm city ( i have this thing about order). Its a first try, but very good and very promising - (I hope the rest deliver).

Rating:
Summary: Smart, funny, great character, great city, good mystery
Review: The worst part about this book is it made me nostalgic for home. Having grown up in Baltimore, but now gone for 30 years, Lippman's descriptions of neighborhoods, downtown, accents, and Ft. McHenry (home of the Star Spangled Banner--as Tess repeatedly notes), brought back great memories.

Tess is an unemployed reporter, living with her aging hippie aunt, having an affair with a still employed reporter, and pouring her heart into rowing (it is nice to see a detective type who stays in shape doing something other than running or lifting weights!). She agrees to help a friend, by snooping on his fiancée to see if she's cheating on him. But, of course, things get complicated, and Tess ends up in the middle of a three ring murder mysteries (two, actually), which implicate some of the most powerful families in the City.

All this, while keeping up her exercise, having a second affair, delving into far too many people's lives for her own good, a visit to Maryland's death row, at least two attempts on her own life, and seeing her lover killed before her very eyes.

Lippman keeps us moving along, has great twists and turns, and yet keeps us laughing all the way. I can't wait to read the whole series--but I may just have to work in a trip back "home" to Baltimore!


Rating:
Summary: an excellent first mystery novel
Review: This book is well written - the characterizations are original, the description of Baltimore is interesting but not overdone, and the "whodunit" ending is suprising but believable. I agree with the reader who said it took the plot a bit of time to really get rolling, but considering this is both a first novel and the first in the series, this slight flaw is easily excusable. I've already started on book 2, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Tess to fans of Kinsey Milhone and Stephanie Plum.