No Good Deeds: A Tess Monaghan Novel (Tess Monaghan Mysteries) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Smartly plotted and paced, Lippman's ninth Tess Monaghan novel (after By a Spider's Thread) opens with a somewhat unlikely scenario: Tess's boyfriend, Edgar "Crow" Ransome, brings home for the night a homeless teenager, Lloyd, who slashed Crow's tires outside a Baltimore soup kitchen. When PI Tess discovers that Lloyd has information regarding the recent murder of Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Youssef, Tess gives his story, sans name, to the local paper, so the authorities will get it secondhand. After a crony of Lloyd's is murdered instead of Lloyd, Tess receives her first visit from a sinister trio of law enforcement agents avid to know her source. Crow flees with Lloyd while Tess suffers growing pressure, including the threat of federal jail time. Baltimore itself is the book's most compelling character, its uneasy mix of aspiration and decay perfectly suited to Lippman's ironic voice. Crow is the book's weakest link; even a late revelation about his motives fails to make his sudden paternalism toward Lloyd believable. Happily, Lippman's loyal fans won't mind. Author tour. (July)
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From Booklist

In Tess Monaghan's ninth outing, an impulse to do good leads to murder. When Crow Ransome, Tess' live-in boyfriend, catches 16-year-old Lloyd Jupiter running a tire scam on his car, he takes him home to ensure he has a place to sleep for the night. By accident, Tess discovers their reluctant guest has some intriguing information about the high-profile murder of a federal prosecutor. When Tess turns the information over to the papers, she's assured her source will be anonymous; not so Tess herself, however, and it isn't long before an aggressive assistant U.S. district attorney and two burly federal cops are knocking on her door. To protect the boy, Crow takes Lloyd away, leaving Tess to decide if increasing pressure from federal investigators is worth protecting a kid with a dubious sense of right and wrong. Lippman lets each character contribute a piece to the whole, which makes the story richer, and there's some nail-biting suspense as Tess faces off against what she thinks are the big guns of government. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (June 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060570725
• ISBN-13: 978-0060570729
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #447,312 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 9 in The Tess Monaghan Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Good Deeds is another hit for great author!, July 17, 2006

By	Raymond M. Rose "Rainman" (Pottstown, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Laura Lippman is just not getting her due. When the bestseller shelves out there are plagued by hacks like Dan Brown and clones of his books, a great book like No Good Deeds is put on the New Hardback table for like a week then relegated to the shelf. Now, any self-respecting mystery fan doesn't even look at the bestseller wall or the New Hardback table. We go straight for the section and start browsing the shelf. Still, I would like to see Lippman reached by more than die-hard mystery fans.

She deserves to be read by everyone. And here's why:

1) Tess. As main characters go, she's a great heroine and a full-rounded character. This isn't some character (like Jack Ryan, for example) that's been in so many books that they've become rounded by no fault of the writer because they've had the guy do everything from analyst to Pope (joke there). Tess has been dynamic, exciting, puzzling, troubled, funny, and entertaining since the first book. It just happens that her characterization gets better with each book (we'll get to more of that later on).

2) Side characters. Like JK Rowling, Laura Lippman knows that readers love good side characters. Where would the Harry Potter books be without Ron and Hermione. Same can be said for Crow, Tyner, Kitty, Whitney (who I think I love a little), and other characters that I'm forgetting and I apologize. Laura gives us great, dynamic side characters to populate her world and they are a joy to come back to again and again. also, her addition of new characters in each book is great. Each character in No Good Deeds is spot on from the Feds to the eager-beaver district attorney to Lloyd.

3) Baltimore. Her city is the second main character. Like Lehane with Boston, Rankin with Edinburgh, and Pelecanos with DC, Baltimore is alive and well within her pages. As a true lover of the city, she brings Baltimore to you in all its highs and lows and its beauty and its ugliness. The city isn't just a setting but a living, breathing character. Also, she dives into the politics and the events that make a city a city. She isn't afraid to tell you what she thinks of what goes on in her city.

4) She Keeps Getting Better. Unlike other authors out there who we say, "Her/His first book was really good but the later ones just haven't been that great," Laura keeps getting better with each book. I thought By a Spider's Thread was the top of her game. In some ways for thrilling alone, it was. But No Good Deeds is even better in characterization and narrative thrust. This book starts and keeps cooking along, not wanting to let you go.

There. I've said why people should be reading Laura Lippman and not a lot of the crappy thrillers out there. I've said this before and I will keep on saying it, "Just because it's on the bestseller's list, doesn't mean it's good." Laura provides a great book every single damn time. Not every third book. No Good Deeds is a great book. Laura Lippman will not let you down.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chain of circumstances, August 2, 2006

By	Fred Camfield (Vicksburg, MS USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Winner of the 2007 Anthony Award for the best mystery novel.

As Crow puts it, if it had not snowed on that Monday in March. The snow led to a chain of circumstances with Crow bringing a homeless teenager home for dinner and a place to stay for the night. It turns out that the teenager, Lloyd, was a witness to a crime, and that draws Tess into the case when she connects Lloyd to a news reporter. Events disrupt her life as the case develops and federal agents demand that she reveal the name of the source. The story starts with a narration by Crow, and alternates between Crow, Tess, and other characters in the story. You will get a lot more Crow in this novel than in others. The story has an interesting ending, and you can wonder if Lloyd will show up again. You get some information along the way about Baltimore soup kitchens and the homeless, and a view of the underside of society where life is sometimes cheap.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great what-if upon what if Tess Monaghan tale, August 7, 2006

By	Kathy Kohl (Belleville, IL) - See all my reviews

Just finished this 9th Tess Monaghan book and am compelled to share how much I enjoyed this one. Tess's boyfriend Crow brings home an inner city youth after he does damage to Tess's car and things develop from there in the usual Monaghan fashion. Tess realizes the boy has inside knowledge about a high-profile murder that has recently occurred and Tess pursues what the boy knows that leads them to trials, tribulations, despair and finally hope.

One line that really stood out in the book for me was:

". . . the only thing you got for being a regular at the Days Inn bar on Security Blvd was loser status, even in the eyes of the losers who took your generous tips and smiled to your face, pretending fealty. No one had a nose for weakness like the bowed and bloodied." This paragraph was so edgy and descriptive I still haven't forgotten it. It also foreshadows how low one of the main characters has fallen, it describes that person in a nutshell. You just don't see it until almost the end.

Really enjoyed this one. And, for the record, I actually enjoyed Crow's point of view. Tess is the best, with Whitney of course, but I didn't dread reading Crow's parts at all.

Happy reading!