Laura Lippman (30 page)

LAURA LIPPMAN
was a newspaper reporter at the
Baltimore Sun
for fifteen years. Her Tess Monaghan novels—
Baltimore Blues
,
Charm City
,
Butchers Hill
,
In Big Trouble
,
The Sugar House
, and
The Last Place
—have won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony and Nero Wolfe awards, and her novel,
In a Strange City
, was named a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year. Her latest standalone crime novel,
Every Secret Thing
, was published by William Morrow in September 2003. You can visit her website at
www.lauralippman.com
.

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“Lippman…combines canny characterizations, wry humor and a colorful view of Baltimore. A thoughtful solver of puzzles, the chatty Tess is refreshingly not a super-detective, but relies on her intuition and occasional lapses into common sense.”

The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

“Loads of memorable characters who buzz around in your head long after it’s all over…tart, funky, fresh.”

The Drood Review

“Tess Monaghan not only tracks down murderers, she captures the city of Baltimore, an altogether endearing and peculiar place.”

David Simon, author of
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

“A tough-minded murder mystery and a funny, rueful tale of love and longing. The whodunit part is fast-moving and nicely cynical, but it’s the wry subplot (not to mention the dead-on touches of local color) that make
Baltimore Blues
both entertaining and unexpectedly touching. More, please.”

Baltimore Sun

“Lippman continues to provide a colorful picture of her hometown along with a spunky heroine to carry the action.”

Mystery Lovers Bookstore News

“Shrewd observation, on-target descriptions, believable characters and hilarious one-liners.”

Publishers Weekly

B
ALTIMORE
B
LUES

C
HARM
C
ITY

B
UTCHERS
H
ILL

I
N
B
IG
T
ROUBLE

T
HE
L
AST
P
LACE

T
HE
S
UGAR
H
OUSE

I
N A
S
TRANGE
C
ITY

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

IN BIG TROUBLE
. Copyright © 2006 by Laura Lippman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Mobipocket Reader June 2006 ISBN 0-06-119366-6

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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