The Girl in the Green Raincoat

After reading What the Dead Know in 2011, Laura Lippman became one of my favorite mystery writers. Her latest book, The Girl in the Green Raincoat, was previously serialized in the New York Times and has been called a "masterful Hitchcockian thriller from one of the very best in the business".

I'm usually pretty compulsive when it comes to reading series in order, but had heard this novella can stand on its own. While that is certainly true, I would have appreciated it even more if I'd already 'known' Tess and understood her history.

Still, this was a very well-written mystery that makes me want to go back and start at the beginning (Baltimore Blues).

My rating:
3.5/5 stars ( )

I'm not sure what I was expecting but it was just an "ok" read for me. Had a nice twist at the end though.... ( )

Tess Monaghan, the full time private detective and part-time control freak, is put on bed rest prior to the birth of her first child. Tess is not one to sit around, and with only Judge Judy and Oprah for companions, she believes she is destined to lose her mind. Unable to find much to do but watch people out the window, Tess notices a young lady walking her dog every day at the same time. The girl's dog wears a matching green raincoat, which leads Tess to speculate about the woman and who she is talking to on her cell phone every afternoon. Until one day, the dog with the raincoat comes running across the park dragging his leash and the girl is nowhere to be found. Tess is, of course, unable to let this go and becomes concerned about the fate of the young woman, who doesn't return to the park with her dog after that day. Alas, Tess pulls in her friends and fellow private detectives to figure out who the girl is and what might have happened to her. In the process, Tess finds herself in danger, as an extremely pregnant woman on bedrest can do little to protect herself from potential threat...

This was a very quick read and fairly entertaining. Tess is driven and witty and the story moved along at a good and suspenseful pace. Though somewhat predictable, I enjoyed the story, which takes a twist from the typical private detective storyline. ( )

Enjoyable, light mystery in a series I haven't tried before. I would read more. ( )

Laura Lippman's slender mystery "The Girl in the Green Raincoat," first published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, has a lot of "Rear Window" in it. And like the Hitchcock movie classic, this story is a winner.

Tess Monaghan, the private investigator featured in several of Lippman's novels, is about eight months into a difficult (and unplanned) pregnancy. Other than trips between her bed and her bathroom, she is confined virtually to one spot. That spot gives her a view of the street, where she often notices a young woman in a green raincoat walking her dog. One day, Tess sees the dog, but not the woman.

After a few days pass without noticing the woman walk past, and with nothing better to do, Tess does some checking using her phone, her computer and her friends. She learns that the missing woman's husband has had two wives and one girlfriend die under peculiar circumstances.

Whitney, Tess's attractive friend, gets the Grace Kelly role in this story. She is sent to meet Don Epstein, the husband, and to try to get some information out of him while pretending to be a vulnerable woman with few close friends or family members, the kind of woman he seems to be drawn to. Things soon get tense for Whitney and, later, for Tess herself.

This slender mystery offers an abundance of wit, romance and, eventually, excitement. It also provides one of the most unexpectedly poignant lines one is likely to find in a mystery story. After she survives her ordeal, Tess, who has been anxious about what changes her baby will mean for her life and her career, begins to view things differently. She recalls that she has known since early girlhood where babies come from. "Now, at thirty-five, in despair over her lack of maternal instincts, she had finally learned where mothers come from."

Fans of Lippman's series will be interested to find out what now awaits this private investigator/mommy. ( )