What do You think about Charm City (1997)?
I would probably go 3.5 stars were that an option, and don't feel totally comfortable calling this a 3...but I guess I liked this a little so 3 it is!Tess is back in action, and after wrestling through this for about a quarter of the book and Tess becomes the caretaker of a greyhound for her Uncle who is in a coma, I began to wonder if anything exciting would happen. Then a newspaper files a report it had not intended to be reported, Tess is hired as a consultant to discover who was behind this error. This is soon followed by firings, suicides or murders...again my pet peeve of moronic cops who overlook facts and investigative techniques in favor of misguided hunches, and Tess's investigative techniques allow her gradually deduce reality/fact by great leaps of supposition, and her interview skills force murderers and liars to confide their hidden secrets and crimes to Tess, by accident. Along the way there is avery nice twist or a few to end the mystery.A decent read, but not one that I would recommend outside of Lippman fans. A nice diversion, but there are more enjoyable (To me anyway) series out there.
—Mark Soone
In the second installment of the Tess Monaghan series, Tess, a former newspaper reporter, is working for an attorney while applying for her license as a private investigator. After business tycoon Wink Wynkowski announces he is going to bring pro basketball back to Baltimore, an article about his troubled financial situation appears in the Beacon-Light. The managing editor of the Beacon-Light hires Tess to find out who placed this article in the paper, since it was rejected until sources could be confirmed. But before Tess can fully investigate, Wynkowski is found in his garage, dead of carbon monoxide poisoning, which is attributed to suicide. When the reporter Tess suspects planted the story is found dead, also ruled as a suicide, Tess becomes convinced the two have been murdered and extends her investigation further to find out who is behind these deaths. Charm City was initially released as a paperback by Avon Books in 1997, followed by the hardback edition by William Morrow in 2007. As a reviewer who has read and reviewed and enjoyed later books in the Tess Monaghan series, this was a somewhat disappointing read. The plot is slow and laboring, and Tess does not come across as a very likeable person. She seems immature and irritable and at odds with what to do with her life. Tess’s best friend Whitney Talbot is superficial and annoying. Tess’s boyfriend Crow adds much-needed warmth, but the saving grace is Esskay, the greyhound Tess’s uncle adopted, who ends up under Tess’s somewhat negligent, resentful care. As with each book, Lippman’s love for Baltimore shines through via her visual descriptions and narrative.
—Christy
Laura Lippman lives in Baltimore and loves her hometown. Her mystery books are set there, and she invites the reader into the quirky city with its Inner Harbor and Fells Point, with the older "hons" and the John Waters weirdness. But it's much more than location that charms me. Laura Lippman writes a tightly-woven mystery story, always adding more information and another plot line, but winding them up before they become confusing.At the center of this mystery is Tess Monaghan, former reporter for the Baltimore Beacon Light (nicknamed "The Blight) and currently a private investigator. She's not smooth, not thin, not a sharp-shooter. She's smart and clever and not good about her love life, and the combination makes for a realistically flawed character who gets in and out of trouble as she solves crimes.Tess is no great beauty, but she's a rower, and the scenes of her love of food make her even more realistic and alive. The plot is cleverly set up and brightly solved. A must-read for mystery lovers.
—Quinn
