Another Thing to Fall

This is Laura Lippman's fifteenth novel yet the tenth book in the series which has character Tess Monaghan, a Baltimore private detective, accepting a job as a bodyguard for a young actress. Lippman has a way of writing excellent mystery/suspense books in the old traditional way. They are well structured and well thought out, meaning they don't jump around or leave you confused until the very end, when you end up having to piece it all together in your head. I like the way she uses characters that you can relate to - real people and real situations - people she has probably met along her way. In this book she writes about a filmed mini-series titled "Mann of Steel" but it's more about the behind-the-scenes drama with the characters than about the TV show. So Tess is taking a job to look after actress Selena Waites, a young up and coming star who recently was stalked, but that person ended up dead by means of suicide. Tess has to deal with all the other multi-faceted actors, writers, producers and extras searching for anything weird or looking for secret agendas. Lippman nicely balances actual facts, the city of Baltimore and your typical Hollywood drama in a nice and cleverly structured plot, making Another Thing To Fall a terrific read.

Baltimore Private Investigator Tess Monaghan is out minding her own business, rowing down the river, when she's almost run over by a film crew shooting a scene in TV miniseries. One thing leads to another and before she knows it she's hired to bodyguard the young star of the show, party hardy Selene Waites. It seems someone is out to sabotage the series and the producers want their star protected and after a member of the crew is murdered it looks like their fears were well founded. This was a nice read which keep me glued to the pages all the way through. I've read one other book by Laura Lippman and I enjoyed it very much. It was good to see Tess again and now that I'm hooked, I'll be checking out Laura Lippman's other Tess Monaghan stories. Laura Lippman turns out well written mysteries which keep you guessing right up till the end. I enjoyed this book a bunch and I think you will too.

In Laura Lippman's ANOTHER THING TO FALL, Private Investigator Tess Monaghan enters the world of Hollywoood as the television series Mann of Steel comes to Baltimore. Filled with humorous and often sarcastic insights into the a culture of celebrity and a behind the scenes of look at the film/television industry, this mystery will have readers laughing aloud as Tess's more literary insights chafe against the world around her. With rowing season soon at an end, Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan takes her scull out for a workout. Headphones in use, she has no idea of the dangers ahead until she crashes, ruining the shoot for a television series. Baltimore has not exactly embraced the presence of Mann of Steel inside its city. The press pans the movie for its disruption of the neighborhood , its indifference to the steel industry, a series of small accidents and the bad behavior of the emerging star, Selena Waites. The series creator, Flip Tumulty, the son of a Hollywood legend, hires Tess to act as a bodyguard to protect the interest of his film and the spoiled actress. After all, a man was found dead, surrounded by photographs of the young star just about the time the set experienced the little incidents of accidents or sabotage. Despite her uneasy introduction to the cast and set, Tess agrees to play babysitter. Tess discovers that her assignment is not as easy as appears when she is forced to spend her time with a group of people who annoy her with their obsession on appearance, their lack of knowledge about Baltimore, literature , history and just about everything else that is not film related. Everyone has an angle. Everyone has an agenda to put themselves first. To make matters worse, Selena gives Tess the slip, proving she is more devious and hard to handle than Tess ever imagined. When a murder occurs, Tess cannot help but investigate even if only unofficially. As she looks more deeply into the cast of characters and the details of the murder, Tess discovers all is not what it appears. Fictive celebrity masks, jealousies and the hunger for fame are only the first layers Tess must unveil to unravel all the threads that led to murder. Laura Lippman assembles an intriguing and often hilarious cast of characters in her latest Tess Monaghan mystery. Selena Waites stars as the rising Hollywood creation, an actress (or actor as women are now called in the movie culture) with an insatiable appetite who never seems to actually eat. Oblivious to everything and everyone around her, Selena represents the perfect example of a culture and generation oblivious to all else but the present and fulfilling every whim and want. Next to Selena stars Johnny Tampa, the aging and overweight actor looking for a comeback. When Selena's role suddenly grows, overshadowing his role in the series, is he jealous or hungry enough to take matters into his own hands? Did one of the entourage of men surrounding Selena, men captivated by her beauty and cel

Not sure why others seem so tepid to this book, as it is a hugely enjoyable read. Tess is solo for most of the adventure, with minimal participation by boyfriend Crow, Detective Tull, bff Whitney or Aunt Kitty--but hey, the Baltimore private eye we ALL secretly would love to hang out with easily holds her own. Lippman has opened a door to the behind-the-scenes world of TV series drama, with accurate renditions of the people, the process and the places, both physical and personal. Her swift word sketches of the activity and the emotions, as well as the lightly comic touches, provide a pure escape with a nice dose of suspense. A new minor player adds a light note that also pays homage to a character familar to readers of Lenora Mattingly Weber's novels, which longtime fan Lippman salutes in all of her Tess stories. Not as dark or 'serious' as some of the Tess series, ATTF is also a counterbalance to Lippman's brilliant standalone "What the Dead Know," published last year. Take a breath, laugh a little, it's ok to simply groove along with Tess in a satisfying story that entertains every page of the way.

For a woman who was fired from a job as a spear carrier in an opera (absolutely no acting talent), Tess surprisingly ends up working for a TV production company shooting scenes in Baltimore for a new series. Tess stumbles into the job by accident, or maybe I should saw rows in, when she blunders into a scene while rowing on the river. The production company is having problems, including a problem with the wild child they have playing the female lead - someone that they think needs a bodyguard/babysitter. There are also lurkers and acts of sabotage on the sets. Eventually there is a murder, actually a couple. I did not really like the novel when I started out, mainly because it was hard to draw characters together. As the novel progressed, I became more drawn into the story (this is one you have to stick with). Some regular characters are used in the story, including Tess' friend Whitney whom she has known since college, and Tull from the police homicide division. There is also Lloyd (whom you might remember from the previous novel "No Good Deeds") who stumbles into an important clue in the case, and a new character, Mrs. Blossom, whom I would hope to see in future novels (a student from a class Tess teaches on Monday evenings, who turns out to be a prodigy). Laura Lippman draws on some of her real life as background for the novel -she is married to a TV producer - so the story is well researched. While I did not consider it an outstanding five star novel, I do consider it a solid four stars. I think some reviewers have tried to rate it too much based on past novels by the author. Hey, every novel by an author will not be her best novel (only one can lay claim to that). Novels should be rated based on their own merits - it may not be the best but it is still good.