Tess Monaghan is in her seventh book and she's in trouble from page one --- but her creator Laura Lippman isn't. Lippman is an author in full control of her characters, her story and her craft. As a lifelong mystery-lover, I get a certain feeling when I crack open a book like this and can immediately sense that I'm in good, sure hands with the author. I relax into that fictional world and let go, secure in the knowledge that I'll be taken places I've never been before, probably wouldn't have the courage to go alone and will return enriched by the experience. THE LAST PLACE is that kind of book.

So Tess gets arrested and goes before a judge. It is a kind of vigilante-justice situation, where her "victim" was more wrong than she. Still, Tess is sentenced to a six-month course in anger management with a shrink. These therapy sessions run in counterpoint to the main plot, a sort of ongoing character commentary that could easily have been overdone. A lesser author wouldn't have been able to resist. But for Lippman it's simply there, a part of this private investigator's life. For Tess, it is certainly not the most important part and insights are noted, tucked away in case they're needed later. She grows but it's no big deal --- she just keeps on keeping on.

That first bad guy --- the one who managed to turn himself into a victim --- may have been merely a nuisance, but there's a real sicko out there. In fact, some of the most outstanding writing in THE LAST PLACE is in sections that show us his view of the world. It's warped but atmospheric; he's twisted, poisoned by longing --- and the object of his longing is Tess Monaghan. She will not know this until very late in the book, but we know and we fear for her.

Tess has been hired by a coalition of humanitarian organizations to investigate a list of six deaths --- unsolved murders --- that are suspected to be rooted in domestic violence. All occurred not in the City of Baltimore, but in Baltimore County; all the cases are supposed to have been chosen at random by a volunteer at one of the participating organizations. Tess's job as private investigator is to go deeper into the deaths than the police in their various jurisdictions have done and to find the domestic violence link the police may have ignored. The coalition will then go to their legislators to ask for a spotlight on domestic violence and for new laws with bigger teeth. Initially, Tess is thrilled to take the case, which seems to dovetail nicely with the goals of her therapy; she thinks, "At last I'll be one of the good guys." Uh-huh.

During her investigation she picks up a sidekick, a former state toll road cop who is now retired on disability and who is obsessed with solving one of the cases himself. He is a fascinating character to pair with forthright, aggressive Tess, who begins to occasionally glimpse a reason she might actually need to be in anger management. And on they go, while the sicko separately continues to tell his side of the tale, all unknown to Tess. For the reader, the suspense ratchets ever higher.

While the plot expands, contracts, cracks open again and now and then doubles back on itself in convolutions only a master storyteller could handle, there are some wonderful moments where one can read for the sheer pleasure of the English language. Bearing in mind that most of the book is from Tess Monaghan's point of view and observations on the part of the author are always consistent with Tess's character, consider the economy and precision of the following: "It was the kind of fresh spring day that made everyone but T.S. Eliot feel hopeful"; "Julie was a heavy smoker. Being inside the house was like crawling into a pack of Marlboros"; "... her manner was slick as marble. Polite but hard, with nothing to grasp"; "Rationalization [is] what really separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It's the opposite of Darwinism. Animals do what they have to do to survive, but it's all instinct. Humans do what they want to do, then work backward, trying to make a case for why it was essential to their survival."

That's the merest sample. There's much more and it all fits within the point of view. You don't get, say, a ten year-old child-character making narrative comments in Shakespearean language -- a device that is much praised by some critics, but it doesn't sit well with me.

When the language is this good and you can't guess the identity of that sicko guy with the scary yearnings no matter how often the plot turns back on itself, you have a book that ends too soon no matter how long it is. That's why I'm glad now that I somehow missed reading last year's Tess Monaghan book, IN A STRANGE PLACE, in hardcover. How could I have done that? It was a New York Times notable book-of-the-year --- shame on me. But never mind. IN A STRANGE PLACE is now out in paperback, so I'll buy it and prolong my Baltimore-based reading pleasure.

That reminds me: The Mayor of Baltimore recently gave Laura Lippman the city's Award for Excellence in Literature. I expect the Mayor wanted to be sure she doesn't forget her roots, because this mystery author is poised on the edge of flight --- into the high, thin regions where bestsellers dwell. Laura Lippman is certainly going to soar.

   --- Reviewed by Ava Dianne Day

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