Laura Lippman, Hardly Knew Her III

This is the third and final post about Lippman´s collection of short stories.

Easy as A-B-C
This is the story about a contractor who ends up redecorating his grandparents´ old house for a very charming, new buyer.

I liked this quotation in particular:
"The stuff in books - anyone can learn that. All you need is time and curiosity and a library card, and you can fake your way through a conversation with anyone."

What you cannot fake, according to our contractor, is his very important job, restoring old houses professionally so they won´t kill their owners one day.


The Shoeshine Man´s Regrets.
This is a Tess Monaghan story. Tess and her friend watch a shoeshine man and a rude customer. When they get into a fight, Tess interferes, doing her best to stop the two men, while her friend calls the police. Very soon what looked like a minor brawl turns into crime of quite different dimensions, however.

A charming story about human character.

I bought the Kindle edition myself. Recommended for lovers of short stories.

Laura Lippman, Hardly Knew Her II

This is the second post about Lippman´s collection of short stories.

The Babysitter´s Code
"The rules, the real ones, have seldom been written down, yet every girl knows them." 
Read this story about the young babysitter Terri Snyder, and you´ll never let a teenage girl babysit in your home again. Or perhaps you should just think about what you have left lying around in your lingerie drawer before you go.

Hardly Knew Her
Sofia is "a lean, hipless girl, the type that older men still called a tomboy in 1975" - a young girl who loves football but hates her father´s poker games - and the consequences for his family. His father has a habit of raiding the house and selling their belongings, and what can a girl do to get her treasures back? Quite a lot, it seems.

Arm and the Woman 
Many of my readers probably know much more about soccer moms than I do. Sally Holt is one of them, and she is also a very good listener which makes her very popular among men as well as women.

"To be a stay-at-home mother in Northwest D.C. was to be nothing less that a general, the Patton of the car pool, the Eisenhower of the HOV lane."

But when her husband leaves her, the whole system falls apart, and Sally has to come up with a plan to keep her home.

Laura Lippman, Hardly Knew Her (2008)

This is a collection of very different American short stories, the first part set in Baltimore.

The Crack Cocaine Diet
Kelley and her friend Molly have just dropped their boyfriends which is why they need a quick diet and new dresses to show the world how stupid these guys were to let them go. They decide cocaine must be the most efficient cure, and these two nice girls begin to look for an appropriate Baltimore corner to get their chosen drug.

Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft)
Andrew is stranded in the airport, having to wait for a plane the next morning, but fortunately he meets Maureen, a woman who is generous in more than one way and more than willing to help him out.

These stories are darker than Lippman´s Tess Monaghan stories, but strongly recommended. I bought the Kindle edition myself.
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Laura Lippman, The Girl in the Green Raincoat (2011)

This American novella is a NetGalley review, published by HarperCollins. It is the eleventh Tess Monaghan mystery, and it will be for sale by January 2011.

“I´m being held hostage,” Tess Monaghan whispered into her iPhone. “By a terrorist.”

So begins this fantastic story, and though the private investigator Tess is heavily pregnant and the terrorist is ´just´ her unborn daughter, the plot grabbed me from the very first page.

Because of high blood pressure Tess is confined to her new sun porch from where she watches life pass her by. For several days she sees the smart woman in the green raincoat pass by, walking her little greyhound with the green coat and leash. But suddenly the dog runs by, all alone, with the leash trailing after it.

Tess is intrigued, and when she traces the owners of the dog, Don Epstein explains that his wife is away on a business trip. But why didn´t she report her leaky companion missing? Furthermore, it seems that Epstein has a tendency to lose his wives so when Tess decides to get to the bottom of the mystery, she is forced to find some allies who can be her legs. She enrolls her close friend Whitney, her partner Crow, and her fascinating employee, Mrs Blossom; “The woman who stood on the front steps of Don Epstein´s house looked ridiculous. She should. She worked hard enough at it.”

Apart from a nice sense of place and a well wrought plot, I found several of the characters irresistible. Especially Tess, Mrs Blossom and the uncontrollable dog. Did I remember to mention the great touch of humour? In short, I enjoyed every bit of this book, and I must read some more Tess Monaghan stories!
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