In a Strange City: A Tess Monaghan Novel

It is a Charm City tradition—an annual visit to theBaltimore gravesite of Edgar Allan Poe on the renowned authors birthday by a mysterious cloaked figure bearing gifts of three roses and a half bottle of cognac. This year, private investigator Tess Monaghan is among the witnesses of the locally cherished rite. And on this frigid January night, she sees two caped visitors approaching Poes resting place. One leaves his tribute and escapes. The other dies there, felled by an assassins bullet. Curiosity brought Tess here to observe the desecration—and common sense tells her to lay low in its wake. But someone wants Tess involved in the murder investigation in the worst way. An anonymous stranger who leaves roses and cognac and cryptic clues on her doorstep; someone who knows her habits, her haunts . . . and what she knows. And suddenly home is a safe haven no longer.

Laura Lippman grew up in Baltimore and returned to her hometown 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 eleven Tess Monaghan books, including Baltimore Blues, Another Thing to Fall, and The Girl in the Green Raincoat; five stand-alone novels, including Every Secret Thing, To the Power of Three, What the Dead Know, and Life Sentences; and one short story collection, Hardly Knew Her. She is also the editor of another story collection, Baltimore Noir. Lippman has won numerous awards for her work, including the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry, and Macavity.