Laura Lippman

Laura Lippman
Lippman at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, April 24, 2008
Born	(1959-01-31) January 31, 1959 Atlanta, Georgia
Occupation	Author
Alma mater	Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Wilde Lake High School
Subject	Detective fiction
Notable awards	Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, Nero, Barry, Macavity, Strand and Shamus
Spouse	David Simon
Website
www.lauralippman.com

Laura Lippman (born January 31, 1959) is an American author of detective fiction.

Life and career

Lippman was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman, Jr., a well known and respected writer at the Baltimore Sun, and Madeline (Mabry) Lippman, a retired school librarian for the Baltimore City Public School System. Her paternal grandfather was Jewish, and the remainder of her ancestry includes Scots-Irish. Lippman was raised Presbyterian. She attended high school in Columbia, Maryland, where she was the captain of the Wilde Lake High School It's Academic team. She also participated in several dramatic productions, including Finian's Rainbow, The Lark, and Barefoot in the Park. She was graduated from Wilde Lake High School in 1977.

Lippman is a former reporter for the (now defunct) San Antonio Light and the Baltimore Sun. She is best known for writing a series of novels set in Baltimore and featuring Tess Monaghan, a reporter (like Lippman herself) turned private investigator. Lippman's works have won the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, Nero, Gumshoe and Shamus awards. Her 2007 release, What the Dead Know, was the first of her books to make the New York Times bestseller list, and was shortlisted for the Crime Writer's Association Dagger Award (see side box for more awards). In addition to the Tess Monaghan novels, Lippman wrote 2003's Every Secret Thing, which has been optioned for the movie by Academy Award–winning actor Frances McDormand.

Lippman lives in the South Baltimore neighborhood of Federal Hill and frequently writes in the neighborhood coffee shop Spoons. In addition to writing, she teaches at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, just outside Baltimore. In January, 2007, she taught at the 3rd Annual Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College. In March 2013, she was the Guest of Honor at Left Coast Crime.

Lippman is married to David Simon, another former Baltimore Sun reporter, and creator and an executive producer of the HBO series The Wire. The character Bunk is shown to be reading one of her books in episode eight of the first season of The Wire. She appeared in a scene of the first episode of the last season of The Wire as a reporter working in the Baltimore Sun newsroom.

Works

Tess Monaghan Series

1. Baltimore Blues (1997). ISBN 0380788756
2. Charm City (1997). ISBN 0380788764
3. Butchers Hill (1998). ISBN 0380798468
4. In Big Trouble (1999). ISBN 0380798476
5. The Sugar House (2000). ISBN 0380978172
6. In a Strange City (2001). ISBN 0380978180
7. The Last Place (2002). ISBN 0380978199
8. By A Spider's Thread (2004). ISBN 0060506695
9. No Good Deeds (2006). ISBN 978-0060570729
10. Another Thing to Fall (2008). ISBN 978-0061128875
11. The Girl in the Green Raincoat (2011). ISBN 978-0061938368
12. Hush, Hush (2015). ISBN 978-0062083425

• "Orphans' Court" (1999) (short story in First Cases: Volume 3, edited by Robert J. Randisi)
• "Ropa Vieja" (2001) (short story in Murderers Row, edited by Otto Penzler)
• "The Shoeshine Man's Regrets" (2004) (short story in Murder and All That Jazz, edited by Robert J. Randisi)

Non-Series

Novels

• Every Secret Thing (2003). ISBN 0060506679
• To The Power of Three (2005). ISBN 0060506725
• What the Dead Know (2007). ISBN 978-0061128851
  (Published as Little Sister in the UK)
• Life Sentences (2009). ISBN 978-0061128899
• I'd Know You Anywhere (2010). ISBN 978-0061706554
  (Published as Don't Look Back in the UK)
• The Most Dangerous Thing (2011). ISBN 978-0061706516
• And When She Was Good (2012). ISBN 978-0061706875
• After I'm Gone (2014). ISBN 978-0062083395

Short Stories

• Like a Charm: A Novel in Voices (2004). ISBN 0060583304
  (Anthology, edited by Karin Slaughter)
• Hardly Knew Her: Stories (2008). ISBN 9780061584992
  (collected short stories of Laura Lippman)

Part 1: Girls Gone Wild

• "The Crack Cocaine Diet" (2005), first published in The Cocaine Chronicles
• "What He Needed" (2002), first published in Tart Noir
• "Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft)" (2005), first published in Dangerous Women
• "The Babysitter's Code" (2005), first published in Plots with Guns
• "Hardly Knew Her" (2007), first published in Dead Man's Hand
• "Femme Fatale" (2006), first published in Geezer Noir
• "One True Love" (2006), first published in Death Do Us Part

Part 2: Other Cities, Not My Own

• "Pony Girl" (2007), first published in New Orleans Noir
• "ARM and the Woman" (2006), first published in D.C. Noir
• "Honor Bar" (2006), first published in Dublin Noir
• "A Good Fuck Spoiled" (2006), first published in Murder in the Rough

Part 3: My Baby Walks the Streets of Baltimore

• "Easy as A-B-C" (2006), first published in Baltimore Noir (edited by Laura Lippman)
• "Black-Eyed Susan" (2006), first published in Bloodlines
• "Ropa Vieja" (2001), first published in Murderers Row
• "The Shoeshine Man's Regrets" (2004), first published in Murder and All That Jazz
• "The Accidental Detective" (Beacon-Light [fictionalized Baltimore Sun] profile on Tess Monaghan)

Part 4: Scratch a Woman

• "Scratch a Woman"

• "Family Man" published in the anthology Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary

See also

• Tart Noir
• Katy Munger
• Interview with Laura Lippman in Shots Ezine September 2012