Book Review - Charm City

Charm City by Laura Lippman is book 2 in the Tess Monaghan series. Tess has a job after being laid off from her newspaper prior to the beginning of the first book in the series. She is working as an investigator for her lawyer friend. After Wink Wynkoski announces his plans to bring a pro basketball team to Baltimore, the new newspaper that laid Tess off runs an article that shows Wink in a very unfavorable light. Turns out that the newspaper thought it had killed the article and hires Tess to find out who hacked into the computer system to run the story. Then, Wink ends up dead.

In addition to the main storyline, Tess's uncle is beaten in an apparent robbery at his pub and his assistant gives Tess a greyhound to care for. It's apparent from the get go that Tess is not a dog person and her interactions with the dog are humorous. As are the interactions that Tess has with the pub's assistant throughout the book as she tries to find out where the dog came form and why there are thugs following her around.

Tess seems to know everyone in the city of Baltimore and they all seem willing to help her out along the way. This usually means that someone owes her a favor for some obscure reason and she is cashing in or that she will owe a favor in the future.

I am really enjoying this series and seeing how Tess is fumbling through her newfound career. It reminds me of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone except that Tess is just starting out in the world of investigation and Grafton's series started with Milhone having a fairly well established business. I can't wait to read more of the Lippman series to see how Tess develops!