October's Authors of the month are
Laura Lippman and Manuel Ramos

Laura Lippman will be signing at Mystery One on Sept. 11, 2003 so stop by and check out her new book!

And this month’s Author? Drum Roll please ….. Laura Lippman.

Unless you’ve been on a desert island the last three years you know this name. Fellow readers, I hope that you’ve read the books. To miss out on the evolution of this scribe is to have done yourself wrong. And I know you don’t want that. Not if you’re actually scrolling the internet looking for reading suggestions, you don’t.

Laura Lippman is a former reporter who has graced the pages of mystery fiction since 1997. With her first book, BALTIMORE BLUES, she and her protagonist Tess Monaghan carved themselves a place in Baltimore fiction as surely as Detective Bayliss . Tess is also a former reporter. Downsized from her nine to five job in the first book, Tess takes a leap that eventually leads to a second career as a Private Investigator.

The plots spew from Ms. Lippman’s P.C. at an incredible rate. From the murder of a Baltimore lawyer in the first book, out to Texas, a visit to Poe’s grave and in last year’s IN A STRANGE CITY, a return to the events that started it all, both Tess and Ms. Lippman have grown at an incredible rate. The author of a “great first mystery” has become so much more. Her always strong characterizations and setting now have the sleek sheen of a Pelecanos or Rozan. The humanity sparkles. The stories stay with you long after you finish the books and you wait to see how much more she will accomplish when next we see new words. For everything is within these pages. Content is complete.

Always obliging , the author continues to peel back layers of her own psyche and throw them into her typed words. The style moves on from “well crafted mystery” to “one of mystery’s freshest voices”. The themes and substance increase with each outing until any homage to a favorite author has become a very flattering tip of the hat.

And one day Miss Laura sits down at her computer and there is no Tess. I’ve reviewed EVERY SECRET THING elsewhere on this site. It is an overwhelming novel. So excited was I by this book that I e-mailed the author with hat in hand, offering up my review like a good Catholic offers up Hail Marys. And Ms. Lippman gave me the best analogy for this book I’ve heard, “I was trying for a female CLOCKERS.” The lady ain’t trying . EVERY SECRET THING is a book like no other. From the manner in which Ms. Lippman presents the plot to the manner in which she has her reader resolve it the work is both original and daring A breath of fresh air told of a putrid society . To say I always knew she had it in her would be trite. Who could possibly know anyone had a tome of this caliber in themselves, never mind knowing from a distance? This has been a year full of outstanding mysteries . EVERY SECRET THING rises to the top like clotted cream.

Ruth Jordan

 

And we also celebrate a new book from - Manuel Ramos

Manuel Ramos is long on his supply of street credibility. He left his position as an attorney in private practice to accept a staff attorney position with the Denver legal aid program. He is currently Director of Advocacy for Colorado Legal Services statewide. The majority of his legal career has embodied furnishing legal assistance to the needy. The majority of his writing career has consisted of writing about it.

His crime fiction novels have earned critical and popular recognition. He has received the Colorado Book Award and the Chicano/Latino Literary Award (University of California at Irvine), as well as a Edgar nomination from the Mystery Writers of America. He also happens to teach Chicano literature courses at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

His series, featuring Denver defense attorney Luis Móntez, is a multi-layered study of Chicano/Anglo social dynamics and human beings at their best and worst. Not since Ross McDonald have the psychological dynamics of crime been so adeptly written. As you watch Móntez change from book to book, you are witnessing a man whose ideals have been worn thin by experience and yet is compelled to do what is right.

Mooney's Road to Hell, his 2002 stand-alone, is one of the best written noir novels of this decade. As solitary man Danny Mora searches for the murderer of INS agent Kiko Vigil, we are witnesses to the determination of a man that chooses justice over money. Those around him have made a different choice and degrade quickly because of it. You will feel the breath of these characters on your neck as you feverishly turn the pages. The ending is a right to the jaw that will knock you out.

Ramos is under-read to the detriment of all mystery readers that have grown disenchanted with the publishing world's current offerings. He writes noir as it should be written: dark, tight and merciless.

Jennifer Jordan

Mystery One offers an extra 5% off books by the author of the month

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