Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman
published 2008
Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman
published 2025
This is an intricate story and connection.
A couple of readers had mentioned in the comments the new Laura
Lippman book – which is a departure for her, despite her having written
many very varied books over the years.
Murder Takes a Vacation follows the story of an older woman, a widow, going on a trip to Europe and falling into all kinds of trouble. She is called Mrs Blossom, and
during the book she is in touch with Tess Monaghan – Lippman’s series PI, based
in Baltimore.
In an endnote Lippman explains that Mrs Blossom was a minor
character in one of the regular Tess books, Another Thing to Fall, many
years before. (And with quite a lot of detail of her life changed for the new
character, whom we can only hope will get her own series)
This seemed a good moment to revisit: I have always been a
big fan of Laura Lippman, but she has had only one
fleeting mention on the blog.
I wasn’t sure which book Mrs B had appeared in – the names of
Lippman’s books are not always defining – but then it turned out that this very
book was one I had read and had then passed on to a close relative. I had said ‘no need to return’ but in this case he sent it back to me literally because
he thought it had good clothes in it for the blog. This must be at least 10
years ago, and I obviously paid him no attention whatsoever (he would be
totally unsurprised). But finally the moment has come…
The reason I thought he would like it is that he was a fan
of the TV series The Wire, and Laura Lippman is married to David Simon, its
key creator, and this book involves Tess M being hired as security on a major
TV show being shot in Baltimore…
Lippman obviously states unambiguously that there is no
similarity etc, and actually you would believe her in terms of plot, character.
But it is clear that she knows and understands every detail of the process –
the language, the power structures, how the offices work – and this adds hugely
to the interest of the book. The Wire is mentioned, along with other
titles, as an example of the kind of projects being made.
In this case the TV show is a time-travel drama involving a
modern-day steel worker going back to old-time Baltimore. The stars are a
washed-up older male, Johnny, and a hot but impossible young starlet, Selene. There
is trouble on the set, and threats, and Tess is called in to help prevent any
more sabotage.
Johnny wonders whether the management ‘had stopped to
consider why Selene had been so convincing as an amoral scheming teen whore’ in
a breakthrough role. He himself had left a very successful TV sitcom ‘at the
height of his popularity… Of course he hadn’t known it was the height, far from
it. He thought there was still plenty of sky over his head.’
In an early scene Selene is wearing a baggy sweater and
freakishly furry boots. I’m using this picture, although Selene is actually
wearing ‘odd-looking jeans’ and the model isn’t – a rare moment where my
picture reveals more than the text.
Tess is teaching an evening course in being a PI, and Mrs
Blossom is one of her pupils. She turns out to be very good at surveillance,
because she is an older, bigger woman, and thus goes unnoticed by most of the
population. Her large flowery dress was not out of place in downtown
Baltimore.’ Her scenes are hilarious.
‘For a large woman, she moved pretty fast’. And… she picks up some valuable
evidence along the way.
Johnny (the aging star) is thinking
about his discretion in sexual matters: ‘you’d never catch him having to
explain some girl dressed up like a Brownie.’ That threw me for a minute: but Johnny
then thinks ‘God, he would kill for a brownie.’ (lower case, ie the cake).
Despite having lived in the USA and having had a daughter in the Girl Scouts, I
had forgotten that Brownies do exist in the US – I thought they were just
called Girl Scouts.
There is a splendid funeral scene – first of all Selene has to be persuaded into something
appropriate, a navy dress and cashmere cardigan. top pic, and this one:
Then there is a physical fight between two mothers, ending in a ’10-layer cake’ landing on the chest of one of the chief characters. It is a ‘10-layer cake in the Smith Island style’ – I’d been hoping for a Lady Baltimore cake from a long-ago blogpost, but this is different:
Lippman has always had the ability to create very funny and
slightly silly scenes amid serious and quite threatening moments, The
apotheosis of this comes late in this book when Tess manages to distract a dangerous
men with a discussion of best routes for getting round Baltimore by car.
I was however disappointed by a few loose ends – who sent
the magazine article? What DID happen to the ring? And felt that one of the
bigger crimes was unresolved
But still enjoyed reading it.
Mrs Blossom’s own book will now have to wait for another post.
Some pictures from Parisian blogger Daphne Moreau
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