No good deeds

In the ninth Tess Monaghan novel, no good deeds go unpunished. Things are pretty stable between Tess and her do-gooder boyfriend, Crow Ransome, until the night he brings home a homeless teen from the bad part of Baltimore. Lloyd Jupiter initially attempts to pull a scam on Crow, who turns the tables by taking the boy to dinner and giving him shelter for the night. Slowly, the murder of a federal prosecutor, the shooting death of Lloyd's sometime partner in crime, and police corruption all blend and become part of a mystery that Tess must solve. Crow takes Lloyd into hiding, not realizing that Tess is being pressured by several bad cops. The last third of the book contains some real surprises, with a pace that never slows down. Narrator Linda Emond is superb; her diction and timing are perfect. She wisely doesn't attempt to imitate male voices but, with subtle changes in her tone, makes it clear which character is speaking. As always, Lippman presents real people, real speech patterns, and tense situations. Recommended for all public libraries.-B. Allison Gray, John Jermain Memorial Lib., Sag Harbor, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.