Search - Charm City (Tess Monaghan, Bk 2)

Writing and plotting are much better in this second installment in the Tess Monaghan series of books. Characters are still just as interesting and crazy as before with some new additions and minor characters. Additionally, the mystery unfolds much better overall. If you're a cozy fan, this is a series to invest in.

In the second book featuring Tess Monaghan, Lippman brings the city of Baltimore (the good, the bad and the ugly) to life. Tess is very likeable, a former reporter turned P.I. The mystery itself is well written and had me guessing up until the very end. I look forward to more Tess Monaghan mysteries.

Reporter-turned-p.i.Tess Monaghan loves every inch of her native Baltimore-a quirky city where baseball reigns, and homicide seems to be the second most popular sport. Business tycoon "Wink" Wynkowski wants to change all that by bringing pro-basketball back to town-a laudable mission that's greeted with widespread cheers...and a muckraking front page expose of his past in the Baltimore Beacon-Light. The "Blight's" surprised editors are sure they killed the piece. Instead, the piece kills Wynkowski, who's discovered asphyxiated in his garage with his car's engine running. Now the paper wants former newshound Tess to track down the rogue computer hacker whose prank took a human life. But there's more than cybercrime involved here-and Tess is about to discover first hand that trying to stay alive in Charm City is murder these days.

This is the second in the Tess Monaghan series and I intend to continue to read this series. I really like Tess as a protagonist; she is very "real" - someone whose feelings actions I can relate to. In this book, Tess is an investigator (her new career)and is hired by the only newspaper left in Baltimore to find the person responsible for printing a story that should have been "dead". The person who is featured in this story then commits suicide but the paper still wants to know who is not a team player. Meanwhile, Tess's Uncle Spike was severely beaten and lies in a coma and there are no questions being answered as to what happened. So basically, there are two plots in this book. Tess gets herself into some hairy situations and nearly becomes a dead investigator. The perpetrator was someone she (and I) did not suspect. I enjoyed the book and can recommend it as a good read - not too long but there is enough detail about people and events to have a solid novel.

Pretty good story line. Slow at some spots, but picks up quickly