Laura Lippman is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author of detective fiction

Detective fiction

Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...

.

Biography

Lippmann was born in Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman Jr., a well known and respected writer at the Baltimore Sun, and Madeline Lippman, a retired school librarian for the Baltimore City Public School System. She attended high school in Columbia, Maryland

Columbia, Maryland

Columbia is a planned community that consists of ten self-contained villages, located in Howard County, Maryland, United States. It began with the idea that a city could enhance its residents' quality of life. Creator and developer James W. Rouse saw the new community in terms of human values, not...

, where she was the captain of the Wilde Lake High School

Wilde Lake High School

Wilde Lake High School is a secondary school located in Columbia, Maryland's Village of Wilde Lake, one of 12 public high schools in Howard County. Opened in 1971 as a model school for the nation, it was Columbia's first high school. It had a unique open doughnut-shaped design with "open...

 It's Academic

It's Academic

It's Academic is a televised academic quiz competition for high school students, currently airing on two NBC affiliates in Washington, D.C. and Central Virginia and one CBS affiliate Baltimore, Maryland . The show has been on the air since October 7, 1961, making it the longest...

team.

Lippman is a former reporter for the (now defunct) San Antonio Light and the Baltimore Sun. She is best known for writing a series of novels set in Baltimore and featuring Tess Monaghan, a reporter (like Lippman herself) turned private investigator

Private investigator

A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...

. Lippman's works have won the Agatha

Agatha Award

The Agatha Awards are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write via the same method as Agatha Christie...

, Anthony

Anthony Award

The Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher , one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America....

, Edgar

Edgar Award

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

, Nero

Nero Award

The Nero Award is a literary award for excellence in the mystery genre presented by The Wolfe Pack, a society founded in 1978 to explore and celebrate the Nero Wolfe stories of Rex Stout...

, Gumshoe and Shamus

Shamus Award

The Shamus Award is awarded by the Private Eye Writers of America for the best detective fiction genre novels and short stories of the year....

 awards. Her 2007 release, What the Dead Know

What the Dead Know

'What the Dead Know' is a crime thriller by Laura Lippman published in 2007. The story, set in Baltimore in 2005, is about an investigation into a woman who claims to be Heather Bethany, a girl who had gone missing thirty years before. The book was critically acclaimed...

, was the first of her books to make the New York Times bestseller list, and was shortlisted for the Crime Writer's Association Dagger Award (see side box for more awards). In addition to the Tess Monaghan novels, Lippman wrote 2003's Every Secret Thing, which has been optioned for the movies by Academy Award–winning actor Frances McDormand

Frances McDormand

Frances Louise McDormand is an American film and stage actress. She has starred in a number of films, including her Academy Award-winning performance as Marge Gunderson in Fargo, in 1996...

.

Lippman lives in the South Baltimore neighborhood of Federal Hill and frequently writes in the neighborhood coffee shop Spoons. In addition to writing, she teaches at Goucher College

Goucher College

Goucher College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, on a 287 acre campus. The school has approximately 1,475 undergraduate students studying in 31 majors and six interdisciplinary...

 in Towson, Maryland

Towson, Maryland

Towson is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 at the 2010 census...

, just outside of Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

. In January, 2007, she taught at the 3rd Annual Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College

Eckerd College

Eckerd College is a private 4-year coeducational liberal arts college at the southernmost tip of St. Petersburg, Florida, in the Tampa Bay metropolitan area. The college is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.- Campus :...

.

Lippman is married to David Simon, another former Baltimore Sun reporter, and creator and an executive producer of the HBO series The Wire

The Wire (TV series)

The Wire is an American television drama series set and produced in and around Baltimore, Maryland. Created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon, the series was broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States...

. The character Bunk is shown to be reading one of her books in episode eight of the first season of The Wire. She appeared in a scene of the first episode of the last season of The Wire as a reporter working in the Baltimore Sun newsroom.

Tess Monaghan Series

1. Baltimore Blues (1997)
2. Charm City (1997)
3. Butchers Hill (1998)
4. In Big Trouble (1999)
5. The Sugar House (2000)
6. In a Strange City (2001)
7. The Last Place (2002)
8. By A Spider's Thread (2004)
9. No Good Deeds (2006)
10. Another Thing to Fall (2008)
11. The Girl in the Green Raincoat (2011)
    • Orphans' Court (1999) (short story in First Cases: Volume 3, edited by Robert J. Randisi)
    • Ropa Vieja (2001) (short story in Murderers Row, edited by Otto Penzler
      Otto Penzler
      Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.-Biography:...
      
      )
    • The Shoeshine Man's Regrets (2004) (short story in Murder and All That Jazz, edited by Robert J. Randisi)

Short Stories

• Like a Charm: A Novel in Voices (2004) (Anthology, edited by Karin Slaughter
  Karin Slaughter
  -Personal Life:Karin Slaughter is an American crime writer, whose first novel Blindsighted became an international success, was published in almost 30 languages, and made the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger Award shortlist for "Best Thriller Debut" of 2001.Fractured, the second novel in the...
  
  )
• Hardly Knew Her: Stories (2008) (collected short stories of Laura Lippman)

Part 1: Girls Gone Wild

• The Crack Cocaine Diet (2005), first published in The Cocaine Chronicles
• What He Needed (2002), first published in Tart Noir
• Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft) (2005), first published in Dangerous Women
• The Babysitter's Code (2005), first published in Plots with Guns
• Hardly Knew Her (2007), first published in Dead Man's Hand
• Femme Fatale (2006), first published in Geezer Noir
• One True Love (2006), first published in Death Do Us Part

Part 2: Other Cities, Not My Own

• Pony Girl (2007), first published in New Orleans Noir
• ARM and the Woman (2006), first published in D.C. Noir
• Honor Bar (2006), first published in Dublin Noir
• A Good Fuck Spoiled (2006), first published in Murder in the Rough

Part 3: My Baby Walks the Streets of Baltimore

• Easy as A-B-C (2006), first published in Baltimore Noir (edited by Laura Lippman)
• Black-Eyed Susan (2006), first published in Bloodlines
• Ropa Vieja (2001), first published in Murderers Row
• The Shoeshine Man's Regrets (2004), first published in Murder and All That Jazz
• The Accidental Detective (Beacon-Light profile on Tess Monaghan)

Part 4: Scratch a Woman

• Scratch a Woman
• "Family Man" published in the anthology Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary
  Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary
  Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary is a collection of short stories written by various authors and edited by Carol Serling, the widow of series creator Rod Serling. Each story was written with themes or styles similar to The Twilight Zone episodes, including narrated...
  
  

Novels

• Every Secret Thing (2003)
• To The Power of Three (2005)
• What the Dead Know
  What the Dead Know
  'What the Dead Know' is a crime thriller by Laura Lippman published in 2007. The story, set in Baltimore in 2005, is about an investigation into a woman who claims to be Heather Bethany, a girl who had gone missing thirty years before. The book was critically acclaimed...
  
  (US) / Little Sister (UK) (2007)
• Life Sentences (2009)
• I'd Know You Anywhere (US) / Don't Look Back (UK) (2010)
• The Most Dangerous Thing (2011)