” ‘I’m being held hostage,’ Tess Monaghan whispered into her iPhone. ‘By a terrorist. The agenda is unclear, the demands vague, but she’s prepared to hold me here for at least two months. Twelve weeks or eighteen years, depending on how you look at it.’

‘Nice way to talk about our future child,’ said her boyfriend, Crow….”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (JAN 19, 2011)

Laura Lippman’s The Girl in the Green Raincoat is a takeoff on Rear Window, the film in which Jimmy Stewart, who is laid up and bored, eavesdrops on his neighbors. Thirty-five year old Tess Monaghan, private investigator, is pregnant and on forced bed rest. Although her boyfriend, Crow, has been patient and accommodating with his irritable partner, Tess is restless and annoyed that she cannot go about her business, which includes conducting surveillance, enjoying alcoholic beverages, and eating her favorite junk foods. She decides to use binoculars to help her do some sleuthing. On a number of occasions, Tess has observed a girl wearing a green raincoat walking her Italian greyhound. Suddenly, the girl disappears, and Tess observes the dog running around by himself, his leash dangling. Anxious to get to the bottom of the mystery, Tess prevails upon her employee, Mrs. Blossom, and her best friend, Whitney Talbot, to look into the matter. Their mission is to find out if fifty-three year old Don Epstein, the husband of the missing woman (whose two previous wives died under mysterious circumstances) has done away with wife number three, Carole Massinger Epstein.

This is an amusing romp, in which Lippman’s lighthearted tone keeps us from taking the thin, busy, and sometimes silly plot too seriously. Tess is snarky and short-tempered, but inwardly, she is terrified of motherhood. Will she mess up her child for life? How can she care for a baby and continue doing the work she loves? Does Crow, who is six years her junior, still want to marry her? Tess has far too much time on her hands, and her imagination is running wild. Tracking down a murderer is just the distraction she needs. Whitney, who is up for anything, has a great time going undercover, as does the free-spirited Mrs. Blossom.

There are laughs a-plenty here. When Tess gets custody of the abandoned dog, she finds out that he is a bit like the Hound of the Baskervilles. He relieves himself at will, chews everything in sight, and snarls at anyone who approaches him. Tess makes some phone calls and finds out who purchased the dog—the aforementioned Mr. Epstein, who happens to live in an extravagant home and owns a chain of check-cashing businesses. Before the story comes to an end, Tess realizes that she may have miscalculated. Instead of delivering a criminal into the hands of the authorities, she has managed to endanger her life. Although no one would consider this 158-page long novella a threat to Hitchcock, The Girl in the Green Raincoat is cute and fun, and has some meaningful messages about parenthood, marriage, and the wisdom of counting our blessings.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 89 readers
PUBLISHER:	Avon A; Original edition (January 18, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Laura Lippman
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: I’d Know You Anywhere To the Power of Three Every Secret Thing And these featuring P.I. Tess Monaghan: No Good Deeds By a Spider’s Thread

Bibliography:

Tess Monaghan series:

• Baltimore Blues (1997)
• Charm City (1997) /
• Butchers Hill (1998) /
• In Big Trouble (1999) /
• The Sugar House (2000)
• In A Strange City (2001)
• The Last Place (2002)
• By a Spider’s Thread (2004)
• No Good Deeds (2006)
• Another Thing to Fall (2008)
• The Girl with the Green Raincoat (2011)

Standalone Novels:

• Every Secret Thing (2003) /
• To the Power of Three (2005)
• What the Dead Know (2007)
• Hardly Knew Her: Stories (2008)
• Life Sentences (2009)
• I’d Know You Anywhere (2010)
• The Most Dangerous Thing (2011)
• And When She Was Good (2012)
• After I’m Gone (February 2014)

“Dear Elizabeth,
I’m sure this is a shock, although that’s not my intention, to shock you. Up until a few weeks ago, I never thought I would have any communication with you at all and accepted that as fair. That’s how it’s been for more than twenty years now. But it’s hard to ignore signs when they are right there in front of your face, and there was your photo in Washingtonian magazine, not the usual thing I read, but you’d be surprised by my choice of reading material these days. Of course, you are older, a woman now. You’ve been a woman for a while, obviously. Still, I’d know you anywhere.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (AUG 17, 2010)

Laura Lippman knows how to write about terror, both the subtle, covert, shadow type and the more acute, stomach-wrenching, in-your-face type. This is a book about acts of terror, specifically kidnapping and rape. It is primarily about the kidnapping and rape of 13 year-old Elizabeth Lerner in 1985 and the 39 days she spent at the hands of her kidnapper and rapist, William Bowman, a serial killer.

Eliza Bennett is currently living the life of a suburban mother in an upper middle-class area near D.C. She has recently returned to the states after 6 years in Great Britain, following her husband, Peter’s, job opportunities. She has two children, Iso (Isobel) 13, and Albie, 8. She and Peter, along with her immediate family members, are the only ones privy to the secret that Eliza Bennett is really Elizabeth Lerner. After the kidnapping, Elizabeth shortened her name to Eliza and when she married Peter, she took his last name. There is no reason that people should suspect Eliza Bennett and Elizabeth Lerner are one and the same.

The book goes back and forth in time from the present to the time of the kidnapping. It very subtly divulges more and more information about Elizabeth, Walter, and the other girls that Walter kidnapped. The novel shows what Elizabeth felt like in Walter’s hands. Her fear was primal and she felt that to stay alive she needed to obey Walter’s every wish. She not only obeyed him, but she always told him the truth, often entertaining him in a Scheherazade-like manner. In fact, she is the only one of Walter’s victims who has lived to tell about it. Elizabeth was the star witness in the trial whereby Walter Bowman was given the death sentence by the State of Virginia. As the book opens, Walter sits on death row.

Eliza is a good mother, but reticent to make friends and prone to nightmares about the other “ghost children” that Walter kidnapped. She knows that life is not safe and that trust is a false god. One day, out of the blue, she receives a letter from Walter, through an intermediary, that has an enclosed picture of Eliza and Peter at a gala. The letter says, “I’d know you anywhere.” So begins Eliza’s nightmares once again. Walter wants to be in phone contact with her and Eliza knows from experience that Walter is not happy if he does not get what he wants. It is here in the novel that I had trouble suspending belief in order to enjoy the rest of the book, for what Eliza does is get a phone just for the purpose of receiving Walter’s collect calls. She decides that it’s better to do what Walter wants than to get him angry. I can think of many other alternatives at this point but Eliza could not.

The story progresses and the reader gets to know Walter and Eliza very well. I was even able to suspend belief later in the book as I felt more compassion for Eliza and could empathize with her character differently and more fully. Knowing her better helped me understand her reasons for talking to Walter.

Laura Lippman is a master at keeping suspense up and of keeping the reader enthralled. Her writing is intelligent and emotive. She does terror so well that I had to put the book down at times because it was too much. However, that never stopped me from picking it up again.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 212 readers
PUBLISHER:	William Morrow (August 17, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Laura Lippman
EXTRAS:	Excerpt An interivew
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: To the Power of Three Every Secret Thing And these featuring P.I. Tess Monaghan: The Girl with the Green Raincoat No Good Deeds By a Spider’s Thread

Bibliography:

Tess Monaghan series:

• Baltimore Blues (1997)
• Charm City (1997) /
• Butchers Hill (1998) /
• In Big Trouble (1999) /
• The Sugar House (2000)
• In A Strange City (2001)
• The Last Place (2002)
• By a Spider’s Thread (2004)
• No Good Deeds (2006)
• Another Thing to Fall (2008)
• The Girl with the Green Raincoat (2011)

Standalone Novels:

• Every Secret Thing (2003) /
• To the Power of Three (2005)
• What the Dead Know (2007)
• Hardly Knew Her: Stories (2008)
• Life Sentences (2009)
• I’d Know You Anywhere (2010)
• The Most Dangerous Thing (2011)
• And When She Was Good (2012)
• After I’m Gone (February 2014)