Not the best Laura Lippman book that I’ve read and I’ve read many of hers. ( )

The ending definitely took me by surprise; it was not what I expected. That's exactly why I liked it, though. ( )

P.I. Tess Monaghan is on bedrest to protect a difficult pregnancy and she is bored out of her mind. She gets caught up in a mystery when a neighborhood woman disappears. Only 158 pages, a quick and fun read. I would read more of Lippman. ( )

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12548997

Not anything to argue about with the 11th book following Tess Monaghan. Tess pulls a Hitchcock and after spying on a young woman in a green raincoat realizes she hasn't seen her for a while and worries that something happened to her. Tess can't do much investigation in this one, and relies on Whitney, and old friends to track down the young woman and find out what happened to her. The ending was definitely a surprise and I liked the change in direction in Tess's life.



"The Girl in the Green Raincoat" is a short story (176 pages to be exact) letting readers into Tess's life now that she is bed-bound and pregnant with her first child. After watching a young woman in a green raincoat for a number of days go to the local dog park via binoculars, Tess realizes that she hasn't seen her and worries something has happened. When Tess's long-time boyfriend Crow and best friend Whitney go off investigating, they find the missing dog, but not the young woman. Before long they track the dog's owner and realize that the woman is now missing.

Lippman usually follows multiple people via her books, and I have to say that I liked the change up of not only letting us get into Tess's head, we got more into Whitney's in this one. We get to see her at her job, get her feelings about her life, and she actually gets to do more leg work in this one due to Tess's condition.

We get some updates on Lloyd and I have to say that I still wish the Lloyd story-line wasn't a thing, but it's more palatable in this one.

Crow is in this, but merely there to wring his hands about Tess and her job. I liked how things were resolved in this. I don't think Tess would be Tess doing something else. And I liked how Tess starts wondering where are they going with each other long-term.

The writing was really good and the mystery aspect set up quite nicely. I loved all of the people that come to Tess when she starts digging more into the mystery of the girl in the green raincoat.

The flow was great, and I think it being a shorter story had Lippman tighten things up a lot.

The setting of the book is mostly focused on Tess at her home, but also follows Whitney around a bit at her job and when she's investigating as well.

The ending was a shocker, I didn't expect that at all. Usually Lippman telegraphs things a bit too early for me, but this one was just right. ( )