No sooner has Tess Monaghan hung her p.i.-for-hire shingle outside her new office on Butchers Hill when in walks Luther Beale. The notorious vigilante who shot a boy for vandalizing his car five years ago, Luther has just gotten out of prison and wants to make amends, he says, to the kids who witnessed his crime. He needs to find them first, and that's where Tess comes in. But once she starts snooping, the witnesses start dying. Like it or not, she's gotten herself embroiled in a case that could have devastating repercussions for Tess herself, the city she treasures, and the young lives a corrupt system heartlessly destroys-as she follows a nasty trail of lies, money, and murder that winds from Baltimore's darkest corners all the way back to Butchers Hill. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Tess Monaghan, newspaperwoman turned sleuth, makes it official with a new business as a PI in a run-down section of Baltimore, Butchers Hill. Her first clientsÄan elderly man known as the Butcher of Butchers Hill and a highly successful female professional fund-raiserÄpresent the first dilemma. Tess needs a cover, reluctantly supplied by Client 2, in order to get access to information on the ghetto for Client 1. The process of finding diverse missing persons starts Monaghan and her two black clients on sometimes prickly discourse involving race. As in Baltimore Blues and Charm City, dialogue is on the mark, accompanied by lively observations about female entrepreneurship, adoption, foster home rackets, and quirky Baltimore natives and neighborhoods. A bittersweet, perfectly plausible ending winds things up. (July) From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Tess Monaghan leaves her job as a newspaper reporter and becomes a PI in Laura Lippman's Butchers Hill (Avon. 1998. ISBN 978-0-380-79846-9. pap. $6.99). Her first client is Luther Beale, imprisoned for killing a young man he caught vandalizing his car. Beale has recently been released and is looking to make amends. So why are the witnesses to the crime starting to die? This novel was inspired by a real-life Baltimore homicide in which a man shot and killed a 13-year-old boy for throwing rocks at his vehicle. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

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.

She is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, What the Dead Know and Another Thing to Fall. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry, and Macavity.

She teaches at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.