Laura Lippman has long been fascinated by the dangerous vulnerability of teenage girls. In "The Babysitter's Code" -- the inspiration for her critically acclaimed novel , To the Power of Three -- an adolescent girl decides to take a gun to school. In "Hardly Knew Her," Lippman's homage to Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding , a tomboy learns that growing up means learning how to lie and deceive. And in "Ice*" -- a prequel to The Most Dangerous...

Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected—and first female—state’s attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It’s not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard County doesn’t see many homicides.

Baltimore private detective and new parent Tess Monaghan is plunged into a disturbing case involving murder , a manipulative mother, and a judgmental stalker that has been watching her every move.

Old friends are reunited after many years by the death of Gordon, the youngest and wildest of five, and, though they have grown apart, they share a common bond through the terrible lie they all share, but begin to wonder whether there is more danger in keeping their secret or hiding the truth from the ones they love.

Eliza Benedict unexpectedly hears from the man who kidnapped her when she was twelve and who is now on death row for the rape and murder of his final victim; but as she finds herself being drawn into his situation, it becomes apparent that he has a hidden agenda.

Until her paper, the Baltimore Star , crashed and burned, Tess Monaghan was a damn good reporter who knew her hometown intimately -- from historic Fort McHenry to the crumbling projects of Cherry Hill. Now gainfully unemployed at twenty-nine, she's willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent -- including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost everyday, attorney Michael...

New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman plunges Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan into a twisted and disturbing case. Tess Monaghan has encountered almost every possible criminal motive throughout her career: greed, revenge, jealousy, rage. But there are crimes that defy all attempts at understanding, where a search for motive seems pointless. Melisandre Harris Dawes committed such a crime. Found not guilty by reason of insanity,...