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Summary
Summary
New York Times Bestseller
Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan--first introduced in the classic Baltimore Blues--must protect an up-and-coming Hollywood actress, but when murder strikes on a TV set, the unflappable PI discovers everyone's got a secret.
"[A] welcome addition to Tess Monaghan's adventures and an insightful look at the desperation that drives those grasping for a shot at fame and those who will do anything to keep it."--San Francisco Chronicle
When private investigator Tess Monaghan literally runs into the crew of the fledgling TV series Mann of Steel while sculling, she expects sharp words and evil looks, not an assignment. But the company has been plagued by a series of disturbing incidents since its arrival on location in Baltimore: bad press, union threats, and small, costly on-set "accidents" that have wreaked havoc with its shooting schedule. As a result, Mann's creator, Flip Tumulty, the son of a Hollywood legend, is worried for the safety of his young female lead, Selene Waites, and asks Tess to serve as her bodyguard. Tumulty's concern may be well founded. Recently, a Baltimore man was discovered dead in his home, surrounded by photos of the beautiful--if difficult--aspiring star.
In the past, Tess has had enough trouble guarding her own body. Keeping a spoiled movie princess under wraps may be more than she can handle since Selene is not as naive as everyone seems to think, and instead is quite devious. Once Tess gets a taste of this world of make-believe--with their vanities, their self-serving agendas, and their remarkably skewed visions of reality--she's just about ready to throw in the towel.
But she's pulled back in when a grisly on-set murder occurs, threatening to topple the wall of secrets surrounding Mann of Steel as lives, dreams, and careers are scattered among the ruins.
Author Notes
Laura Lippman grew up in Baltimore and returned to her home town in 1989 to work as a journalist. After writing seven books while still a full-time reporter, she left the Baltimore Sun to focus on fiction.
Laura is the author of What the Dead Know, 2016 New York Times Bestseller, Another Thing to Fall, After I'm Gone, and Wilde Lake. She also writes the Tess Monaghan series. She has won numerous awards for her work including the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry, and Macavity.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hollywood comes to Baltimore in bestseller Lippman's assured 10th PI Tess Monaghan caper (after 2006's No Good Deeds). When Tess literally stumbles onto the set of Mann of Steel, a big-budget TV miniseries shooting in her neighborhood, she finds herself hired as a bodyguard for Selene Waites, the show's 20-year-old hard-partying star. Flip Tumulty-the show's writer and son of a Baltimore-born Hollywood mogul-tells Tess the set has been plagued by vandalism and he fears for Selene's safety. Tess soon uncovers unsettling photos of Selene and learns they were taken by Wilbur Grace, a stalker who later hanged himself. When one of the crew members is murdered, Tess suspects someone may be trying to shut down more than the TV production. While the excitement level may not match that of other recent entries in the series, fans will appreciate the author's usual authentic local color and intricate plotting. 15-city author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Baltimore is the temporary home of a big- budget television series, which doesn't please the locals as much as one would think. Tess Monaghan (No Good Deeds) manages to ruin a day's shooting while out rowing and in the process finds herself the sought-after security detail for Selene, the show's 20-year-old star. Strange things are happening on set, and Tess agrees to babysit providing the producers give boyfriend Crow's latest project, Lloyd, a job. The details are worked out, but when Tess is outsmarted by Selene, she is forced to bring in extra help. Then a production staffer is murdered, and it seems as if everyone on set is suspect, from the producers to the actors to the writers and the staff. The production of a TV series is complicated business, and Lippman includes lots of Hollywood detail in this Charm City murder mystery. It's an interesting story with a lot of characters, but, unfortunately, Tess is the only one that is fully fleshed out. Not Lippman's best effort, but fans of the series will want to read it anyway. Recommended for larger fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/07.]-Stacy Alesi, Boca Raton, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Another Thing to Fall A Novel Chapter One The headphones were a mistake. She realized this only in hindsight, but then--what other vision is available to a person heading backward into the world? True, they were good old-fashioned headphones, which didn't seal tightly to the ear, not earbuds, which she loathed on principle, the principle being that she was thirty-four going on seventy. Furthermore, she had dialed down the volume on her Sony Walkman--yes, a Sony Walkman, sturdy and battered and taxicab yellow, not a sleek little iPod in a more modern or electric shade. Still, for all her precautions, she could hear very little. And even Tess Monaghan would admit that it's important to be attuned to the world when one is charging into it backward, gliding along the middle branch of the Patapsco in a scull and passing through channels that are seldom without traffic, even in the predawn hours. But Tess had painstakingly rationalized her way into trouble, which, she decided later, is pretty much how everyone gets into trouble, one small rationalization at a time. She wanted to row, yet she felt obligated to listen to her boyfriend on a local radio show, promoting the Oktoberfest lineup at her father's bar. Besides, he planned to play some songs by Brave Combo, a nuclear polka band that Tess quite liked. She would row a path that was familiar to her, and trust the coxswains for the fours and eights to watch her back, a courtesy offered to all scullers. It did not occur to Tess to row a little later, or skip the workout altogether. The rowing season traditionally ended after Thanksgiving, a mere month away. She had to take advantage of every waning day, especially now that Baltimore was in its full autumnal glory. If aliens had landed in Baltimore on this particular October morning, they would have concluded that it was the most perfect city on the globe they were about to conquer, truly the Charm City it claimed to be. The trees were tinged with gold and scarlet, the breeze was light, the sky was slowly deepening into the kind of brilliant blue that reminded Tess that she once knew the word cerulean, if only because it had been on the vocabulary lists for the SATs. She set out for Fort McHenry, at the distant tip of Locust Point, rationalizing every stroke of the way: She knew the route so well, it was so early, the sun not even up. She had beaten the other rowers to the water, arriving in darkness and pushing off from the dock at first light. She wouldn't wear the headphones on the way back. She just needed to hear Crow on WTMD, listen to him play a few snippets of Brave Combo, then she would turn off the Walkman and-- That's when the police boat, bullhorn blaring, crossed into her line of vision and came charging toward her. By the time she registered everything that was happening--the approaching boat, the screams and shouts coming from all directions, the fact that someone was very keen that she stop or change course--the motorboat had stopped, setting up an enormous, choppy wake that was going to hit her sideways. Tess, trying frantically to slow and steady her scull, had a bona fide moment of prescience. Granted, her vision extended only two or three seconds into the future, but it was uncannily exact: She was going to go ass over teakettle into the Patapsco, a body of water that even conquering aliens from a water-deprived planet would find less than desirable. She closed her eyes and shut her mouth as tightly as possible, grateful she had no cuts or scratches into which microbes could swim. At least the water held some leftover summer warmth. She broke the surface quickly, orienting herself by locating the star-shaped fort just to the north, then the wide channel into the bay to the east of the fort, toward which her vessel was now drifting. "Get my shell," she spluttered to the police boat, whose occupants stared back at her, blank faced. "My shell! My scull! MY goddamn boat." Comprehension dawning, the cops reached out and steadied her orphaned scull alongside the starboard side of their boat. Tess began to swim toward them, but a second motorboat cut her off. A man sat in the stern of this one, his face obscured by a baseball cap, his arms crossed over a fleece vest emblazoned with a curious logo, Mann of Steel. He continued to hug his arms close to his chest, a modern-day Washington crossing the Delaware, even as two young people put down their clipboards and reached out to Tess, boosting her into the boat. "Congratulations," said the male of the pair. "You just ruined a shot that we've been trying to get for three days." Tess glanced around, taking in everything her back had failed to see. This usually quiet strip around Fort McHenry was ringed with boats. There was an outer periphery of police launches, set up to protect an inner circle, which included this boat and another nearby, with what appeared to be a mounted camera and another fleece-jacketed man. There were people onshore, too, and some part of Tess's mind registered that this was odd, given that Fort McHenry didn't open its gates to the public until 9 A.M. Farther up the fort's grassy slopes, she could see large white trailers and vans, some of them with blue writing that she could just make out: Haddad's Rentals. She squeezed her ponytail and tried to wring some water from her T-shirt, but the standing man frowned, as if it were bad form to introduce water into a boat. "The sun's up now," said the young woman who had helped Tess into the boat, her tone dire, as if this daily fact of life, the sun rising, was the most horrible thing imaginable. "We lost all the rose tones you wanted." Another Thing to Fall A Novel . Copyright © by Laura Lippman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.