In a Strange City (A Tess Monaghan Investigation)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752848100 ISBN 13: 9780752848105

Publisher: Orion Pub Co, 2002

It was a case Tess turned down - but now she's caught up in a web of obsession and murder . . .Every year on 19 January for the past fifty years an unknown visitor has left three red roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac on the grave of Edgar Allan Poe. When a prospective client asks PI Tess Monaghan to investigate, she refuses - after all, no crime is being committed.But she does go to the 19 January vigil as an observer. In the freezing darkness she watches as two cloaked figures approach the grave, appear to embrace and then part. Then there's a gunshot and one is killed. Tess quickly learns that the dead man is not the regular visitor. So who is he? And why was he there? When it turns out that Tess's would-be client had given her a fake name, she knows she must try to find him. Then an old friend from her past surfaces, claiming that the shooting was a homophobic hate crime, and things get even more complicated.

From the Back Cover:

New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan must put her PI skills to the ultimate test when she falls into the crosshairs of a psychopath who knows everything about her.

For the past fifty years on the birth date of Edgar Allan Poe, a person wearing a cloak has placed three roses and a half bottle of cognac on the writer’s gravesite. PI Tess Monaghan has never witnessed the event. But when John P. Kennedy, an eccentric antiques dealer, asks her to uncover the identity of the caped visitor, who he believes has duped him with the sale of an inauthentic antique, Tess decides to hold vigil on the night the cloaked stranger is expected to make an appearance. But the custom takes on a bizarre, fatal twist when two cloaked figures arrive. The imitator leaves his tribute and then makes his escape...after shooting the first visitor. 

Warning bells tell Tess to steer clear of this case. But when roses and cognac appear on her doorstep, Tess’s curiosity is piqued. She soon discovers that John P. Kennedy has vanished into thin air and much of what he told her was questionable. Then the identity of the shooting victim comes to light, and all clues seem to point to the possibility he was the target of a hate crime. But Tess isn’t convinced. What was his connection to the decades-long Edgar Allan Poe tradition and to the killer? When more cryptic clues are left at her home, Tess realizes that someone is watching her every move...someone who’s bent on killing again.

About the Author:

Before becoming a full time novelist, Laura Lippman was a newspaper reporter for 20 years, including 12 years at the BALTIMORE SUN. She lives in Baltimore with her partner, the writer David Simon.