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Laura Lippman

Biography

Laura Lippman

Since Laura Lippman’s debut, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the “essential” crime writers of the last 100 years. Stephen King called her “special, even extraordinary,” and Gillian Flynn wrote, “She is simply a brilliant novelist.” Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than 25 languages. She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her daughter.

In addition to the novels and novellas and short stories Laura writes, she has written essays --- for the New York Times, Glamour and LongReads, among others --- which were collected into the stunning MY LIFE AS A VILLAINESS. The Wall Street Journal wrote, “With this book, Ms. Lippman demonstrates that the first-person essay is yet another form in which she excels.” The Chicago Tribune called her essays, “witty and poignant and thoughtful.” There were raves as well from the New York Times (“funny and sharp”), the Los Angeles Times and many others.

Books by Laura Lippman

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Amber Glass has spent her entire adult life putting as much distance as possible between her and her hometown of Baltimore, where she fears she will be forever known as “Prom Mom” --- the girl who allegedly killed her baby on the night of the prom after her date, Joe Simpson, abandoned her to pursue the girl he really liked. But when circumstances bring Amber back to the city, she realizes she can have a second chance --- as long as she stays away from Joe, who is now married. The problem is, Amber can’t stay away from Joe. And Joe finds that it’s increasingly hard for him to ignore Amber. Against the surreal backdrop of 2020 and early 2021, the two are slowly drawn to each other and eventually cross the line they’ve been trying not to cross. And then Joe asks Amber to help him do the unthinkable.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Mystery, Short Stories

In the never-before-published “Just One More,” a married couple --- longing for that old romantic spark --- creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences. Laura Lippman's beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father in “Seasonal Work,” while her mother, Judith, realizes that the life of “The Everyday Housewife” is an excellent cover for all kinds of secrets. In “Slow Burner,” a husband’s secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife. A father’s hidden past piques the curiosity of a young snoop in “The Last of Sheila-Locke Holmes.” SEASONAL WORK includes seven other brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games and love gone wrong.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Horror, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Aubrey, the title character of Gerry Andersen’s most successful novel, Dream Girl, is so captivating that Gerry’s readers insist she’s real. Gerry knows she exists only in his imagination. So how can Aubrey be calling Gerry, bed-bound since a freak fall? A virtual prisoner in his penthouse, Gerry is dependent on his incurious young assistant and a dull, slow-witted night nurse. Could the cryptic caller be one of his three ex-wives playing a vindictive trick after all these years? Or is she Margot, an ex-girlfriend who keeps trying to insinuate her way back into Gerry’s life? Aubrey is threatening to visit him, suggesting that Gerry owes her something. Is the threat real or a sign of dementia? Then he wakes up to a woman’s dead body next to his bed and the terrifying uncertainty of whether or not he is responsible.

by Laura Lippman - Essays, Nonfiction

In this collection of original and previously published nonfiction essays, New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman offers readers an introspective look into various facets of her life. Her childhood and school years, her successful career as a newspaper reporter, the challenge of balance, her life as a novelist and a reader --- Lippman’s takes on these universal subjects offer as many twists as her award-winning crime fiction. Of the 16 essays, only three have appeared in book form before.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Drawing on her own secrets, Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl --- assistance that leads to a job at the city’s afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake. Cleo Sherwood was a young African-American woman who liked to have a good time. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie --- and the dead woman herself. Maddie is going to find the truth about Cleo’s life and death. Cleo’s ghost, privy to Maddie’s poking and prying, wants to be left alone.

written by Laura Lippman, read by Susan Bennett - Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Drawing on her own secrets, Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl --- assistance that leads to a job at the city’s afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake. Cleo Sherwood was a young African-American woman who liked to have a good time. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie --- and the dead woman herself. Maddie is going to find the truth about Cleo’s life and death. Cleo’s ghost, privy to Maddie’s poking and prying, wants to be left alone.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

They meet at a local tavern in the small town of Belleville, Delaware. Polly is set on heading west. Adam says he’s also passing through. Yet she stays and he stays --- drawn to this mysterious redhead whose quiet stillness both unnerves and excites him. Over the course of a punishing summer, Polly and Adam abandon themselves to a steamy, inexorable affair. Still, each holds something back from the other --- dangerous, even lethal, secrets. Then someone dies. Was it an accident, or part of a plan? By now, Adam and Polly are so ensnared in each other’s lives and lies that neither one knows how to get away --- or even if they want to. Is their love strong enough to withstand the truth, or will it ultimately destroy them?

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Luisa “Lu” Brant is the newly elected --- and first female --- state’s attorney of Howard County, Maryland. She sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death. The case dredges up painful memories, reminding her family of the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man’s life. Lu now wonders if the events of 1980 happened as she remembers them. What details might have been withheld when she was a child? The more she learns about the case, the more questions arise.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Tess Monaghan wants nothing to do with a woman crazy enough to have killed her own child. But when her mentor asks her to keep an eye on Melisandre Harris Dawes, who --- by reason of criminal insanity --- was judged not guilty of her daughter’s death, she has to accept. However, things gets tricky after Melisandre becomes a prime suspect in a recent murder. While Tess scrutinizes her, a judgmental stalker has been watching her every move as well.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Mystery

The acclaimed bestselling author of THE MOST DANGEROUS THING, I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE and WHAT THE DEAD KNOW returns with an addictive story that explores how one man's disappearance echoes through the lives of the five women he left behind --- his wife, his daughters and his mistress.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense

Heloise is a suburban madam who lives the life of “every mom” with soccer games and homework in between the hours where she runs her business and has her own customers, who spend time with her for a price. Life seems safe for her until another suburban madam is found dead, and suddenly the life she has built starts to feel a lot less secure.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Mystery, Psychological Suspense, Suspense, Thriller

Years ago, they were all the best of friends. As time passed and circumstances changed, they grew apart, became adults with families of their own, and began to forget about the past --- and the terrible lie they all shared. But now Gordon has died, and the others are thrown together for the first time in years. And then the revelations start.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Mystery

Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who—or what—could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness?

Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Mystery

For Tess Monaghan, the unsolved murder of a young federal prosecutor is nothing more than a theoretical problem, until her boyfriend, Crow, brings home a juvenile con artist who doesn’t even realize he holds an important key to the sensational homicide. Tess agrees to protect the boy’s identity no matter what, and with federal agents determined to learn the boy’s name at any cost, Tess finds out just how far even official authorities will go to get what they want.

by Laura Lippman - Fiction, Mystery

In Laura Lippman's latest stand-alone novel (following 2003's EVERY SECRET THING), the lives of three girls who have been best friends for years --- and the affluent community in which they reside --- are forever changed when one of them brings a gun to school to resolve a mysterious feud.