Laura Lippman and Mrs Blossom and The Wire

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