The Sugar House: A Tess Monaghan Mystery
by Laura Lippman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Laura LippmanEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-07-31
ISBN: 0380810220
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Avon
Book Reviews of The Sugar House: A Tess Monaghan Mystery
Book Review: Classic Tess
Summary: 4 Stars
Having read this book way back when and now listening to it anew on audiobook, I can say Laura Lippman has fooled me twice with "The Sugar House." Its plot is so labrynthian (but easy to follow) that it can indeed do that trick.
I've read all of the PI Tess Monaghan novels and this is the best one. In her other novels, Tess' family is the backdrop as she takes on cases involving rich fur dealers, visiting movie stars, African American children and other strangers.
In "The Sugar House," her family is front and center. We've known from other books that the Monaghans (and the Weinsteins on her mother's side) are politically well connected in Baltimore. Tess' father sits on the city liquor licensing board. Her Uncle Spike owns a bar, but also makes book and does "favors" for people. They have entree in both Baltimore City politics and Maryland politics. They also know Baltimoreans of dubious reputation whose last names end in vowels. It is within this network that the events of the novel transpire.
As the book opens, Tess' father asks her for a favor. A young female acquaintance of his, Ruthie, wants someone to investigate the death of her brother. Her brother was stabbed to death in prison. He was in prison for confessing to the murder of a teenage girl who, a year after the murder, still remains unidentified. Ruthie believes her brother was murdered to shut him up. She believes that by uncovering the identity of the dead girl, the motive to her brother's murder will be revealed.
That's all the plot you need to know and, believe me, it's just the beginning as Tess begins to uncover information that leads to an ugly political conspiracy.
As Tess plows ahead, she escapes traps, endures threats, dodges bullets and faces her father's wrath. But she WILL get to the bottom of this. And she does.
Lippman is not a particularly deft prose stylist, but she is terrific storyteller. And that's plenty.
Summary of The Sugar House: A Tess Monaghan Mystery
A client named Ruthie -- who seems to know Tess's father a little too well -- asks the newspaperwoman-turned-p.i. to investigate a year-old "Jane Doe" murder and its grim aftermath. Ruthie's low-life brother, Henry, confessed to killing a teenager runaway over a bottle of glue -- and, a month into his prison term, he met the same fate as his victim. Following a precious few tantalizing clues, Tess sets off on a path that is leading her from Baltimore's exclusive Inner Harbor to the city's seediest neighborhoods. But it's the shocking discovery of the runaway's true identity that turns her hunt deadly. Suddenly a supposedly solved murder case is turning up newer, fresher corpses and newer, scarier versions of the Sugar House -- places that look sweet and safe...but only from the outside.
If you haven't encountered Tess Monaghan, the strong-willed former reporter turned PI who stars in Laura Lippman's increasingly popular series, it may be because this is her first appearance in hardcover. But this deftly plotted mystery may change all that and bring Lippman, herself a Baltimore journalist, and Tess, her curious and likable heroine, the attention they deserve. When Tess's dad asks her to do a favor for a friend, Tess gets involved in tracking down the identity of a nameless girl whose killer, the friend's brother, was murdered himself shortly after he went to prison for the crime. Her search leads Tess in and out of parts of the Atlantic coast that tourists, and many natives, never see: to a clinic for the rich, young and anorexic on Maryland's Eastern Shore; to the Philadelphia Main Line; and inside the corrupt and clandestine corners of the Maryland state capitol in Annapolis. The more Tess learns, the more questions she has, and the most important ones have to do with her father's involvement in the mystery of the anonymous victim and how she died.
The subtext of this well-written, richly rendered thriller is Tess's confrontation with her own values and her struggle to accept her father's compromises with his. There's also a sexy love story with Tess's boyfriend, who's nearly too good to be true, and a lively gal pal, the wealthy and loyal Whitney, whose own talents are equally impressive. The author is good at developing multidimensional characters, the minor ones as well as the majors. And once your appetite is whetted by The Sugar House, you'll want to track down Tess's earlier adventures in Lippman's (paper) backlist, beginning with Baltimore Blues. --Jane Adams
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