Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books.

Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Before long, Lu the fierce looks like she may have caught a tiger by the tail.Īlthough she overamps some reveals and shortchanges others, Lippman as always treads the fine line between certainty and amazement.Īnother sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.Ī week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. There’s forensic evidence, there’s an eyewitness, but for Lippman, there’s no such thing as a sure thing. Homeless Rudy Drysdale is accused of breaking into Mary McNally’s apartment and killing her. Her new job pits her almost immediately against Fred in a case that looks like a sure winner. Hollister III and takes her father's old position, becoming the first woman elected state’s attorney for Howard County. It also brings her to what for many would be the pinnacle of her career when she beats her old boss Frederick C. Her drive powers her through life’s challenges: the death of her young husband, Gabe, the difficulty of raising her twins without him, and her complicated relationship with her father, which grows even thornier after she moves back into her childhood home. AJ leads a charmed life of academic ability, athletic triumph, and artistic talent, and some of these blessings seem to rub off on Luisa.

Although she’s never quite accepted by her peers, motherless Lu does get to tag along with her brother, AJ, and his multicultural band of friends from Wilde Lake High. Adele Brant lived in her dream house for less than a year before she died a week after Luisa’s birth. She lives in an old stone tavern her father, Andrew Jackson Brant, state’s attorney for Howard County, had moved onto a lush double lot for his wife. Growing up in green, slightly hippie suburbia has its pluses and minuses for Luisa Brant. Lippman ( Hush Hush, 2015, etc.) takes familiar themes to a new locale as she traces a family’s journey from raucous Baltimore to the meticulously planned community of Columbia, Maryland.

Laura lippman book reviews