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BUTCHERS HILL by Laura Lippman Avon, July 1998 275 pages $5.99 ISBN: 0380798468

Tess Monaghan, former reporter has made the next step. She now has a license, an office and an empty calendar. She's still, in effect, on probation, according to the licensing regs, but hey, what are friends for, if not to grease the skids? Her office is located on Butchers Hill in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Baltimore is one of the characters of this series, and you couldn't have a more interesting city as a character.

Unfortunately, like many modern cities, some people who live there are the sort you might cross the street to avoid talking to--people like Luther Beale, a law-and-order-type who took law and gun into his own hands one hot dark night. He was tired of having his and neighborhood cars vandalized on an almost weekly basis. Hearing the vandals, he went downstairs to confront them and in the ensuing melee, a small boy, not yet in his teens is shot dead. Now, the butcher of Butcher's Hill, Luther Beale, sits on the other side of Tess' desk wanting to hire her. Why? To locate the other foster children who were present that hot summer night, to help them with cash grants, perhaps to atone, in part, for what happened.

In a dark, layered novel, Tess Monaghan, meeting resistance and new questions at every turn, goes up against a vast public welfare system, private prejudice, and finds murder, fraud, thievery, compassion and hope in a case that cuts closer to home than she could ever have believed possible.

This is a fine, well-written book with interesting characters in settings. What more can a reader ask? I firmly recommend this novel and the entire series.

--

Carl Brookins

carlbrookins@earthlink.net

INNER PASSAGES

A SUPERIOR MYSTERY

http://www.Minnesotacrimewave.org/

Reviewed by Carl Brookins, September 2002

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