By a Spider's Thread

Dauntless PI Tess Monaghan is hired by a wealthy and reticent Orthodox Jew to track down his wife, who has disappeared along with their 3 children. At first, it’s difficult to decide who to root for; the wife to get away from her controlling husband, or the devastated husband to get his sneaky, cheating wife back (or at least the kids), but it soon becomes very clear who the good guys and bad guys are.
Tess continues to grow both in her business and as a person, which makes for a dynamic character and a reason to keep reading the series, which I will definitely do.

I honestly don't have much to say here except that I really enjoyed this updated look at Tess's life. She is still suffering some aftershocks after the events in the last book. Having to kill someone or she would be killed left a hole in her. She and her boyfriend are living apart since she feels like he is trying to "fix" her and keep her safe. She is back to rowing and doing investigations again. Her uncle brings her a new client who is trying to track down his wife and three children. He doesn't understand why she left and the police won't help him. When Tess starts digging deeper she figures out there are half-truths going on and a whole lot of lying. When she finally starts pulling things apart she figures out a long-standing show more conspiracy.

Tess was great to me in this one. She still has her two dogs and her family and her favorite aunt. Though she is a bit lonely without Crow around, she's making due. Lippman references a few times how the last case shook Tess's confidence. She doesn't know if she can be strong again, but we get to see her do just that a bunch of times throughout the story. I also think that Tess's cynicism was softened a bit in this one, but she's still no one's fool. Via Tess, Lippman always does a great job breaking down the history of the places that Tess is traveling to.

We get introduced to a couple of new secondary characters in this one. We have Mark Rubin that has hired Tess to find his wife and children. I honestly didn't know what to make of him earlier on, but really liked that Lippman had things leaning one way until we get some shocking reveals here and there. Lippman also switches the POV's to Mark Rubin's wife Natalie, Rubin's son, and a mysterious man that has an unending hatred for Mark for some reason.

We also get some familiar characters in this one, Tess's best friend Whitney, her aunt, and her aunt's long-time boyfriend too.

I thought the writing was very good and that Lippman incorporated some more background on Orthodox Judaism which gave the book a different feel than prior ones. Rubin's religion definitely plays into what is going on or what he chose to not see.

The flow was a bit off after a while though. I think once we realize as readers what is going on you may start to feel a bit impatient for things to get moving.

The setting of Baltimore per usual seems to always have a presence in these books. We do have Tess traveling back and forth in this one, but for once the book stays centered in Maryland though Rubin's wife travels back and forth across multiple states.

The ending was really good and I didn't see the twist coming. I loved the epilogue and that we do see a hint of Tess's older cynicism rearing it's head. show less

Private detective Tess Monaghan is back. To bring you up to speed, this time she is a gun-toting, more experienced mystery solver. She has an online network of lady private investigators to help her solve cases, too. Tess still rows (although not as much as in the beginning), her aunt is finally settling down and getting married (Tess is maid of honor), but Tess and her cool boyfriend, Crow, are taking a break (sadly) after finding out they have differing opinions about marriage. In By a Spider's Thread this time Tess has been contacted by a rich Jewish furrier, desperate to find his missing wife and children. What Tess and her new client, Mark Rubin, don't know is that wife Natalie willingly took their three children and ran away, show more joining her criminal lover on the run. This time Lippman gives the reader both sides of the story - Mark's desperate search and Natalie's ever-increasingly criminal escape (and boy, does it get criminal). The bigger mystery is why Natalie would want to run away from a man who has given her everything she has ever wanted. As a successful furrier, Mark Rubin has always kept his wife in the lap of luxury. True to Lippman form, as always, things are not as they seem. show less

Laura Lippman's standalone novels have been very popular in recent years, yet it is hard not to miss her outstanding Tess Monaghan series of mysteries featuring a female private investigator. One of those gems is “By a Spider's Thread,” published in 2004.

The Baltimore detective is hired by a Jewish man to find his missing wife and their three children. Tess herself is half Jewish, as well as half Irish, and so she has some understanding of what makes Mark Rubin tick — why he refuses to shake her hand, for instance.

So protective is Mark that he refuses to divulge to Tess key details that might help her find Natalie, his wife. One such detail is that Natalie's father has long been in prison, and that she used to visit him there. show more Mark used to work with Jewish prisoners, which is how he met Natalie.

It turns out that Natalie has long been in love with Zeke, one of those prisoners. While waiting for Zeke's release, she married Rubin and had three kids with him. Now that Zeke is free, she runs away to join him. The three kids, however, are a surprise to Zeke and upset his plans.

Lippman gives us both sides of the story, alternating from Tess and Mark to Natalie and Zeke. One of the key characters is Isaac, the oldest son, who misses his father and works behind Zeke's back to make his life difficult.

It's a grand story that readers will love. show less

Mark Rubin's family is missing -- and the police can't do a thing because all the evidence indicates that his wife left willingly. So the successful furrier turns to Tess Monaghan, hoping she can help him find his wife and three children. Tess doesn't know quite what to make of Rubin, a wealthy Orthodox Jew who refuses to shake her hand and doles out vitally important information in grudging dribs and drabs. According to her client, he and his beautiful wife, Natalie, had a flawless, happy marriage. Yet one day, without any warning or explanation, Natalie gathered up their children and vanished.
Tapping into a network of fellow investigators spread across the country, Tess is soon able to locate the runaway wife and her stolen progeny, show more moving furtively from state to state, town to town. But the Rubins are not alone. A man is traveling with them, a stranger described by witnesses as "handsome" and "charming" but otherwise unremarkable to these casual observers, who have no way of sensing the fury beneath his smooth surface. show less

This is the eighth book in the Tess Monaghan detective series, and rather anomalous. The emphasis in this book is not on Tess, now 33, although she of course plays a (minor) role. Rather, it is on her client, Mark Rubin, and his life as an Orthodox Jew: what does it mean to live in this fashion? I would classify this as a “social” crime novel.

Rubin comes to Tess requesting that she find his wife and three children, who have disappeared. The police have determined there was no foul play, and thus will not take on the case. But Rubin can’t believe his wife would have left him voluntarily; he wants to find out what really happened.

Much of the story concerns Tess’s efforts to understand the insulated community of her client’s show more world, so that she can ascertain what may or may not have happened. She also sees it as a chance to find out more about her own background: Theresa Esther Weinstein Monaghan is half Jewish and half Irish Catholic, but without any real knowledge of either heritage. Now, she has the opportunity to find out more.

Interspersed with Mark’s story, we follow that of his wife Natalie (formerly Natasha) and her three children, as they go on a journey with consequences they have not anticipated. In particular, we get to know Isaac, the oldest son, who is brave and loyal and smart enough to provide lots of unwitting assistance to Tess and Mark.

Discussion: Tess goes through a number of reactions in this book. At first, she is hostile toward this orthodox man, finding him harsh and rigid. As they get more comfortable with one another and let down their defenses, they discover that they can actually accept and even like each other. It’s a lovely minuet.

Lippman also nicely blends in one of the characters, Police Detective Nancy Porter, from her standalone novel, Every Single Thing. It’s a fun touch for readers who have been following her books in order.

In this book too, Tess for the first time taps into the new national internet-driven network of female investigators called SnoopSisters. Set up by Gretchen O’Brien, a character from a previous book, this network provides indispensable help for Tess in locating Natalie. Lippman includes the emails of this group as part of the text, providing a fun look at the interactions of these women.

Evaluation: This novel has a great deal of information to offer about a number of aspects of different cultures about which the reader may be unaware. Although we don’t spend much time examining Tess and her life, we gain a lot in the trade. show less

I liked Tess. Often I found myself saying her lines before she did. The pacing was good and the writing often humorous. She obviously drew upon her Jewish background for much of the detail on Mark’s religious proclivities, one of which was that he would not shake her hand upon their first meeting. Something about it being prohibited for a man to touch a woman other than his wife. How odd.

At first, Mark is painted as an overbearing and controlling asshole. His erstwhile wife criticizes the fact that he would rather read than watch TV or go out. She at once loves their oldest son, but also laments the fact that he’s so like his father. As the case progresses we see that she is a somewhat brainless and also heartless woman.

While show more visiting her father in prison, she met Zeke and he manipulated her into thinking that they were in love. What he really wanted, was revenge. He knew that her father, also an inmate, pimped her favors out to any takers; he sold letters, photographs and sexual favors. He thought she could do better.

Luckily, this fit in with Zeke’s plans and they targeted Mark, a member of a Jewish ministry group in the prison. Since he has another 10 years left to serve, he wants to put Natalie away for ‘safe keeping’ and what better place to keep her than with a boring man with money whom she cannot love? After he is released, Natalie will join him for the culmination of the plan. This will be to kill Mark and take his money.

Does this seem a little over the top? Cruel and personal? Well it is. Mark is Zeke’s step-brother. When they were kids Zeke thinks that Mark’s father caused his own father’s suicide so he could marry his mother. Zeke thinks that Mark’s father also cheated him out of their partnership’s share and caused the failure of Zeke’s father’s next business.

But he didn’t count on Tess Monaghan. After asking a lot of rude questions, enlisting the help of her online Sleuth Sisters and a bit of luck, Tess unravels the case. Even Mark’s controlling behavior can be explained by Natalie’s actions and in the end, Tess even ends up liking Mark a bit.

Zeke thinks his plan is coming together when he locks Mark and the children in an unventilated vault in Mark’s fur storage warehouse. Tess is also locked in, but thinks her spare cell phone will get them out. She pretends to be helpless while Zeke takes Natalie aside and explains that she must frame Mark for the killing of the children because she really did kill the cop that stopped them earlier on the road.

But this is too much for Natalie. Light dawns on marble head and she finally sees Zeke for the manipulative asshole he is. When he thinks his plan is finally fulfilled and that he will forever dominate her, Natalie shoots him and goes back for Mark, Tess & the kids. But this action won’t save her from the murder trial. In the end, Mark still wouldn’t divorce her. Denial man. show less