Tess Monaghan #2
William Morrow
September 2015
On Sale: September 1, 2015
Featuring: Tess Monaghan
ISBN: 0062083430 EAN: 9780062083432 Kindle: B00K52I7HQ Paperback / e-Book (reprint) Add to Wish List
New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman plunges Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan into a twisted and disturbing case.
Tess Monaghan has encountered almost every possible criminal motive throughout her career: greed, revenge, jealousy, rage. But there are crimes that defy all attempts at understanding, where a search for motive seems pointless.
Melisandre Harris Dawes committed such a crime. Found not guilty by reason of insanity, she fled the country, leaving her two daughters with their father. Twelve years later, sheβs back in Baltimore, and Tess is asked to provide security detail while Melisandre films a documentary about her attempts to reconcile with her now teenaged children.
Tess, juggling work with caring for her demanding toddler, is uneasy about the case. Still, Melisandreβs lawyer is family. And there is something about the woman herselfβconfident, beautiful, shrewdly intelligentβthat draws Tess in. Is she a master manipulator or someone who was driven to temporary madness? Cold and calculating, or a mother concerned for her daughtersβ well being? Someone is leaving Melisandre enigmatic, threatening notes. Soon Tess, insecure about her parenting abilities and receiving cryptic messages of her own, isnβt sure whether she should be protecting Melisandre from harmβor protecting everyone else from Melisandre.
When Melisandre becomes the prime suspect in a murder, Tess must uncover the truth. Doing so will mean confronting her deepest beliefs about what separates good parents from bad, madness from sanity, and what lengths even the most rational person will go to, to protect what they cherish most.