Butchers Hill (Tess Monaghan Mysteries) [Mass Market Paperback]

Laura Lippman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Tess Monaghan Mysteries | Publication Date: July 1, 1998

Tess Monaghan has finally made the move and hung out her shingle as a p.i.-for-hire, complete with an office in Butchers Hill. Maybe it's not the best address in Baltimore, but you gotta start somewhere, and Tess's greyhound Esskay has no trouble taking marathon naps anywhere there's a roof. Then in walks Luther Beale, the notorious vigilante who five years ago shot a boy for vandalizing his car. Just out of prison, he says he wants to make reparations to the kids who witnessed his crime, so he needs Tess to find them. But once she starts snooping, the witnesses start dying. Is the "Butcher of Butchers Hill" at it again? Like it or not, Tess is embroiled in a case that encompasses the powers that-be, a heartless system that has destroyed the lives of children, and a nasty trail of money and lies leading all the way back to Butchers Hill.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tess Monaghan, newspaperwoman turned sleuth, makes it official with a new business as a PI in a run-down section of Baltimore, Butchers Hill. Her first clientsAan elderly man known as the Butcher of Butchers Hill and a highly successful female professional fund-raiserApresent the first dilemma. Tess needs a cover, reluctantly supplied by Client 2, in order to get access to information on the ghetto for Client 1. The process of finding diverse missing persons starts Monaghan and her two black clients on sometimes prickly discourse involving race. As in Baltimore Blues and Charm City, dialogue is on the mark, accompanied by lively observations about female entrepreneurship, adoption, foster home rackets, and quirky Baltimore natives and neighborhoods. A bittersweet, perfectly plausible ending winds things up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

LAURA LIPPMAN has been awarded every major prize in crime fiction. The recipient of the first Mayor’s Prize, she lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and New Orleans, Louisiana, with her husband, David Simon, and their family.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Avon (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380798468
• ISBN-13: 978-0380798469
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working fulltime and published seven books about "accidental PI" Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor's Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association. Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light. Ms. Lippman returned to Baltimore in 1989 and has lived there since.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tess is an imperfect protagonist, but she's improving., April 30, 1999

By 

Henry (Elkton, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Butchers Hill (Tess Monaghan Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the third of the Tess Monaghan books. Mysteries are often filled with cardboard characters and one or two well developed characters. Laura Lippman doesn't work that way. All her characters are imperfect, but then, so are real people. The characters in this, and the other two novels in this series are interesting and have twists and turns in their characteristics that are as amusing as are the twists and turns of the plots. Normally, I don't identify with female protagonists, but Tess is such an interesting person that even a straight guy such as myself enjoys her point of view.

I recently had the opportunity to meet Laura Lippman when she came around to the local library to talk to her fans. She's also an interesting character.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better...but Still Underwhelming, August 17, 2008

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Butchers Hill (Tess Monaghan Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Even though I didn't particular care for the first two books in the Tess Monaghan series, a friend's recent relocation to Baltimore gave me enough of a nudge to go ahead and try the third. This installment opens with a prologue involving an altercation between a proud old man and a group of foster children running wild, which doesn't end well. Fast forward five years to the present, and we find former newspaper reporter Tess hanging out her shingle as a private investigator, complete with office in the titular semi-seedy neighborhood. (Given her relative ineptitude in the other two books, I'm not sure why her lawyer-rowing coach-mentor Tyler Gray thinks it's a good idea to push her into becoming a detective, but whatever.)

Her first two cases present themselves on the same day. The first is Luther, the old man seen in the prologue, just released from five years in prison on gun charges stemming from the incident in the prologue. He wants Tess to track down the kids so that he can try and do some good. Her other client is a young professional black woman around her own age, seeking to track down her estranged sister. Of course, neither case is quite what it seems at first glance, and various reversals and revelations make for a rocky start to Tess's detecting career.

They also make for a somewhat more compelling read than the previous two books in the series, although this one is also far from perfect. For one thing, the prologue presents a very obvious clue to the reader about the events of that evening five years previously, leaving the reader wondering for more than half the book just when Tess is going to be given the same information. And of course, when she does, it isn't the stunning scene it's meant to be. There's also a logical problem involving the other client's case, involving a "test" the client gives Tess, and its relation to the client's motivation for hiring her. I don't want to reveal anything, but the rationale for this test makes no sense in light of later revelations. Finally, Tess continues to be a rather dim investigator. Her two cases here are basically tracking people down, and she seems to have little notion of how to do this, and once again, she has to rely on family connections to arrive at one of her breakthroughs, and outsource computer searching to another person.

On the plus side, Tess emerges as a richer character in this book (although still not one I'm hugely fond of). As in the last book, one plotline ends up entangling her family, and here we get a richer picture of her family dynamics (although her colorful Aunt Kitty is thankfully absent for most of the book). The book's highlight is the nicely realized construction of a friendship between Tess and her female client. The two plotlines also take the reader into the politics and economics of adoptions and foster care, making some interesting public policy commentary along the way. On the whole, I'm still rather underwhelmed by the series (given the amount of positive press it's received), but this is a notch better, so maybe like a lot of crime fiction authors, Lippman gets better as she writes more.

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Each novel gets stronger, November 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Butchers Hill (Tess Monaghan Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Butchers Hill is the best of the series. There are many surprising twists. And well-constructed: I quickly got trapped in the dream of the novel, switching focus as the author placed different lenses of perspective on the "facts" presented to Tess. I also like that Tess herself puts together incorrect suppositions. It's real to life -- unlike, say, Mickey Spillane. Though mystery aficionados might find Tess' humanity a nuisance.

Nice touch with the convict's dictionary-derived pedantry; I wish it had been carried further (in Charm City Laura did a similar thing with Spike's assistant's forming statements as questions).

One caveat for the author: the heroine's family/friend environment is starting to resemble a Tom Clancylike picture of social palatability, albeit with an NPR-approved, nineties urbanite twist. Sigh. I mean, what's next? Kitty becomes a lesbian and finally can enjoy a meaningful relationship? There might be more dimension in revealing the humanity of one who is politically anathema to the author. Readers should check out NYC journalist Sparkle Hayter's wacky mysteries. Though I prefer Baltimore!