The Last Place

Tess Monaghan #7

by Laura Lippman

When New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan investigates five cold case murders, she doesn’t expect the investigation to become personal…

Tess Monaghan agrees to look into a series of unsolved homicides that date back over the past six years despite the fact that the assignment originates from a troubling source: wealthy Baltimore benefactor Luisa O’Neal, who was both instrumental in launching Tess’s present career and intimately connected with the murder of Tess’s former boyfriend.

Apart from the suspicion that each death was the result of domestic violence, nothing else seems to connect them. Five lives—four women, one man—ended in various ways. The only thing the five cases seem to have is that they are now ice cold. Tess’ search for the connecting threads takes her beyond the Charm City limits and into dangerously unfamiliar territory. With the help of a police officer obsessed with bringing a murderer down, she follows scant leads into the remotest corners of Maryland, where a psychopath can hide as easily in the fabric of a tiny, rough-hewn fishing community as in the alleys and shadows of bustling Baltimore.

As she strays far from everything that’s familiar and safe in her life, Tess is suddenly cast into a terrifying cat-and-mouse game with an ingenious slayer who changes identities as often and effortlessly as clothing. But at last, a single link to the murders emerges. Unfortunately, it's Tess.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Audiobook, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Detective

432 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

Since Laura Lippman’s debut, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the “essential” crime writers of the last 100 years. Stephen King called her “special, even extraordinary,” and Gillian Flynn wrote, “She is simply a brilliant novelist.” Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than twenty-five languages. She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her teenager.

Reviews

[stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

re-read february, 2011:

I LOVE CARL. oh man, he broke my heart a million times over. and so did lousia o'neal, and oh, just so many. it was really sad. oh, CARL.

and i totally get why tess just wanted to screw crow sometimes. the fact that nothing is random. the poor women. the doctor. dottie.

mostly, though, carl.

*

first read: june 17, 2008

i feel kind of wrong classifying lippman with the other trashy thrillers - she's not particularly trashy, though she does write thrillers.

this book, this book broke my heart. it tied up loose ends that i worried would make it the end of the series (despite knowing that there are books after it already published). i loved the difference in tess this time around - the court-mandated anger management, the lack of tyner and kitty, even crow and whitney - not to mention the dogs (i am so happy they kept miata!). normally this would bother me, but somehow it fit the story perfectly - tess is growing up in ways we haven't seen before, and she had to do a lot of it alone. i loved the return of luisa o'neal, because i knew she would have to come back some day, and the way she did made me - much like tess - hate her and pity her at the same time.

i liked the brief interludes from the killer's perspective. i liked seeing more of maryland than just baltimore, and i loved sensing tess's relief at coming home, but her wariness as well. the final twist scene is really . . . i don't want to spoil anything, but it changes tess forever, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. and damn, carl dewitt grew on me like dandelions on newly planted lawn.

i almost am afraid of what will happen to tess next, and i wonder if we'll be able to see the fallout. once again, i am so glad i am reading these in order. once again, i want to go to baltimore and eat some crab. once again, i love tess and her world and everyone in it, and i can't wait to get started on the next one.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tess Monaghan is up to her neck as always in an out-of-control investigation. What begins as an investigation of domestic violence cases involving murder eventually puts her on the trail of a serial murdered. In this novel, Tess travels all over the state of Maryland from rural northwest Maryland to one of the only populated islands in Chesapeake Bay (in this case a fictional island). Tess is like a dog with a bone and she never stops. This time the cost is pretty high.

A bonus to the audiobook was that the narration did a pretty decent job of varying accents. There is a Maryland accent, more common outside the urban areas and the narrator does a good approximation. It helped capture that sense of place of the novel.

[Obsidian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This was really good. We have Tess pulled into an investigation that has her in the crosshairs of someone that wants to show Tess how good he would be for her. That without him, she wouldn't be who she is now. This whole book is a wonderful look at so many things I don't even know where to start. With a case that lands Tess into mandatory anger management. With her realizing how great her relationship with her boyfriend is mostly because he's not there to tell her what to do, but support her. Her making friends with a down and out former cop who has a lot of ideas about how "women" are supposed to act. The ending was thrilling and I can't wait to see what Tess gets up to next.

"The Last Place" starts with Tess and Whitney (often her partner in crime) following a man that they know tried to solicit a family member of Whitney's online. At one point there is actually an argument from someone that the guy wasn't a pedophile because he was trying to date teen girls, and I maybe dry heaved a bit. Tess and Whitney want to get the guy's name and blackmail him, but the evening takes a turn when Tess realizes he was planning on drugging and raping her and Tess and Whitney get a little payback. Cue Tess being arrested for assault and the judge wanting to make an example of her by giving her probation but ordering her into anger management because the guy who was trying to solicit young girls online is the real victim here. No words you guys.

From there Tess starts therapy and is haunted still by the loss of her ex from book #1. She knows why he died and who was behind it, but Tess has kept that secret for a long time. Things get a bit worse for Tess when Whitney pulls her into a case investigation five deaths that Whitney and other foundations want to take a closer look at to see if the police investigating the deaths did all they could. The cases take Tess down a winding path and have her realizing that the deaths may possibly be connected to a potential serial killer.

Tess is great in this one. Feeling settled in her home with Crow and the dogs she is still working as an investigator. Though the anger management therapy is annoying, she has to do it for only 6 months. The therapist does pry some things loose from Tess, but honestly I didn't like the guy. Way too many men in this story seemed to think the case that involved Tess wasn't a miscarriage of justice. I am not saying a woman should Nair the hair off a potential rapist and draw on his terrible ass with a sharpie, but I am not saying you shouldn't do it either. I mean don't do it if you can get caught.

Tess has great instincts and her realizing the cases that she initially thought weren't an issue and circling back to realizing that they are connected was great.

Lippman introduces a character called Harry in this one who investigates one of the deaths that Tess was called into review. Harry has a total backwards view of women and a few times he exploded at Tess while they were working together and I didn't like the guy. I could see though why Tess ends up feeling sorry for him though and realizing that he does have good instincts. Both Tess and Harry are trying to prove something in this one and I liked how Lippman eventually leads us back to the first case that Tess was involved in.

The book also provides us with the killer's POV and then we switch back to Tess. I honestly don't think adding the killer's POV helped things and actually distracted from Tess figuring out what is going on. Also, even though I gave this five stars, it seems like in every mystery novel starring a strong female lead, we have a serial killer getting obsessed with the main character.

The writing was good and Lippman gives a great description of areas around Maryland and Virginia. One of the reasons why I like these books is I get a kick out of reading about places I have been to in real life.

The ending was a shocker and it does live Tess changed. I can't wait until the next book!

[Heidi (can’t retire soon enough) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was probably my favorite book in the series so far. I've always treated these as rather light mysteries but this one was far darker than others and had a really unusual story line. It's definitely one you need to read after you've read the first two or three because it follows up on an earlier mystery.

As always, looking forward to the next in the series.

(Reviewed 1/25/09)

[Dee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I absolutely loved the What the Dead Know, which is the only reason that I became interested in Laura Lippman to begin with. I found this book to be really disappointing. I really didn't care for the main character, Tess, either. The only mystery in this book is if the reader is going to make it to the end or ditch it altogether. Since this is part of a series, I'll just make sure that I never read one of her books in the "Tess series" again. Had I read this book before What the Dead Know, I would haven't even bothered to finish the book and would have never read a Laura Lippman book again.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and involved plot that provides suspense, some humor and well drawn characters. Tess Monaghan gets herself in hot water which results in court appointed therapy which rankles her for a number of reasons. Her friend, Whitney, is part of a group of non-profit organizations and offer Tess her next assignment involving five old murder cases. Tracking down the details of those cases and finding a common thread in all of them put Tess at risk and afraid for her life and that of her friend and boyfriend.

[Daniel Sevitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess this was more coherent than the last one, but it made the fatal mistake of making the hero of the series the target of the serial killer. Yawn. Really? I like Tess and everything, but I just don't buy her as the centre of anyone's universe and certainly not this meticulous planner of terrible crimes. So this was meaty, but mostly to no great end. I have one more of the series already on the shelf, but I can't see myself buying more unless I run out of other things to read.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The audiobook narrated by Barbara Rosenblatt is so engrossing. Only Tess Monaghan would drive from Pikesville to Jimmy Canter's in Annapolis on a spring day for lunch. Oh wait, I would totally do that. Probably part of why I love this series. Now I gotta figure out if Notting Island has been eaten by the Chesapeake.

[Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tess is hired to investigate five cold cases, but the mysteries may not be as random as she thinks.

Too predictable at key moments, and I am so tired of the "women investigator is stalked by serial killer" plot. Ack.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked it but felt like the story was too disjointed in parts, which made it hard to follow at times.

[Carly · Rating 5 out of 5]

**edited 01/24/14

There's nothing more satisfying than a clichéd plot that is done well enough to be elevated to something more significant.

In the detective noir genre, there's nothing more chlichéd than a serial killer, and The Last Place is Lippman's obligatory serial killer book. It starts out with a scene that, with another author, might be treated as a joke. Lippman's private investigator protagonist, Tess Monaghan, at her friend Whitney's instigation, tricks a wannabe pedophile into taking his own date rape drugs and then denudes him of his hair with a few well-placed squirts of Nair. But the reason why I respect Lippman as a writer is that in her world, actions have consequences. Although Tess (and the narrator) initially present these actions as humorous, Tess quickly ends up with felony charges and court-mandated anger management therapy. Whitney, characteristically not particularly apologetic for her part in the escapade, tries to make amends by presenting Tess with what should be an easy case to solve. Of course, Whitney's case turns out to be more than it seems, and Tess is pulled into a game in which she is both the hunter and the prey for a serial killer.

So why, then, is this the first Laura Lippman book I've ever given a 5 to? The only thing more chlichéd than a serial killer is a serial killer who goes after a bevy of beautiful women, starts to fixate on the detective, and provides snippets of chapters from his own viewpoint. While The Last Place is indeed all of those things, it is yet something more. It is a book about symmetry and consequences.


...
Due to my disapproval of GR's new and highly subjective review deletion policy, I am no longer posting full reviews here.

The rest of this review can be found on Booklikes.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

So suspenseful! Apparently I was agitated enough at times reading this that my wife came in more than once to check on me and make sure nothing was wrong. "No, honey, my novel is just suspenseful," I said, but she said I was making her worry.

And Lippman is really very good at creating characters who seem real.

But I do wish that the books didn't always wind up with Tess in mortal peril; surely sometimes the bad guys don't become obsessed with and try to kill the PI? To that extent, there's a quality of sameness about the Tess Monaghan series, but the richness of the characters offsets this to a large degree, and it's still a great series.

[Maddielucy(Patti) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to give this series credit. It’s not usual to be able to jump around, read out of order, and like each book — but that is the case here. Each book is a story in itself with Tess Monaghan being the central character. Based in Baltimore, which I love, book #7 finds Tess investigating a series of unsolved homicides that, at first, seem to be unrelated and a bunch of dead ends. But nothing is as it seems and it’s up to Tess to find the truth. Very good page-turner.

[John Addiego · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Lippman mystery had slipped past my notice, so I was glad to find it. Her style, with its blend of sharp detail, dark humor, strong characterization, and suspense was at its best. The story had an almost magical element in the creation of an imaginary island and its inhabitants. This worked very well for me, even though the basic plot and motive for the antagonist stretched my willingness to accept it as plausible. Stretched but didn't break: I enjoyed the ride her story took me on.

[Juniper · Rating 4 out of 5]

the stories feel like they are getting a bit grittier and creepier as this series progresses. in this book, lippman gives 'tess' opportunities to show vulnerability, and brings in a couple of new supporting characters who are used really well. lippman is great at projecting mood and urgency with her writing.

[Heather Stanton]

Continuing my glom - I thought this got a little convoluted at times though still a decent mystery and character development for Tess.

[MT · Rating 5 out of 5]

intense!!

[Marieke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Niet per se een bijzondere thriller voor mij, maar ook geen slecht verhaal. Knap hoe de schrijfster meerdere moorden aan elkaar heeft weten te relateren met maar één moordenaar.

[Janet Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew. This was intense. And sad. And also rather twisted. Lippmann does all those things really well.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was tough on multiple fronts. It was difficult to keep the names of the characters in this book which included victims of the killer, members of the board, and the various witnesses and those interviewed. Added to that, the premise behind the investigation was sketchy at best. That said, there were other parts of the book that clicked.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I normally dislike those mystery--more often suspense thriller--stories wherein the killer/stalker gets pages to talk about their creepy stalking/killing, this book was ambitious and intriguing enough for me not to mind.

[David Wooddell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stuff - not as good as the first five Monaghan books, but the Baltimore settings, and accents and voices are well done, and I learn about my new home town.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still loving this series. Can't wait for the next one...

In hot legal water -- and court-ordered therapy -- for having assaulted a potential child molester, Tess Monaghan is more than ready for a distraction. So she agrees to look into a series of unsolved homicides that date back over the past six years despite the fact that the assignment originates in part from a most troubling source: wealthy Baltimore benefactor Luisa O'Neal, who was both instrumental in launching Tess's present career and intimately connected with the murder of Tess's former boyfriend.

There are other troubling aspects as well. Apart from the suspicion that each death was the result of domestic violence, nothing else seems to connect them, Five lives -- those of four women and one man -- were destroyed by fire, gunshot, and hit-and-run, and all five cases have gone ice cold. Though Luisa's nonprofit organization hires Tess simply to review old police documents for inconsistencies and investigative blunders, curiosity is soon leading the P.I. off the paper trail.

And it just may get her killed. Tess's search for connecting threads takes her beyond the Charm City limits and into dangerously unfamiliar territory. With the help of a police officer obsessed with bringing a murderer down, she follows scant leads and intuition into the remotest corners of Maryland, where a psychopath can hide as easily in the fabric of a tiny, rough-hewn fishing community as in the alleys and shadows of bustling Baltimore. Straying far from everything that's familiar and safe in her life, Tess is suddenly cast into a terrifying cat-and-mouse game with an ingenious slayer who changes identities as often and effortlessly as clothing. Because a single common link to five senseless murders is beginning to emerge with shocking clarity to tie the loose ends together into one bloody knot...and the link is Tess Monaghan herself.

[Patti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tess Monaghan is not the most talented fictional private investigator. In this case she has a lot of help from a former Toll Facilities cop named Carl Dewitt, who had the misfortune of discovering a head without a body in the middle of a highway bridge. Carl then became obsessed with the murder of Lucy Fancher. Tess is actually investigating five cold murder cases, including Lucy Fancher’s. She has no inkling that these cases are anything but random. However, as a reader, I thought the first two cases seemed eerily similar, even if Tess didn’t pick up on that fact until quite a bit later in the book. This was a fast and enjoyable read but certainly not special. It has the usual twists and turns and red herrings, but I thought Carl was a much more compelling character than Tess. Tess may be tenacious, but she is not in Carl’s league in that department. Also, with five more or less disparate victims, I thought the connections between the cases were a bit contrived. The author does intersperse throughout the novel a few pages devoted to the musings and activities of the killer, so that we know he has his eye on Tess. Does he intend for her to be his next victim? No doubt. I found these interruptions, distinguished by a different typeface so that I could groan each time I encountered one, to be annoying and not really that informative, other than, of course, his focus on Tess. I found her to be a bit elusive, and her investigating skills seemed mediocre at best. This book does build on some events from previous novels in the series, but this is the first one I’ve read. Perhaps The Last Place is not the ideal starting place.

[Tiffany Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's never a dull moment in this seventh book in the Tess Monaghan series. Placed on probation after she and her friend Whitney attack an alleged sexual predator, Tess is sent to anger management sessions and assigned busy work...or so she thinks. She is assigned to revisit five unsolved homicides, simply to check that the police followed proper protocol. Soon, though, Tess realizes that there's a common thread linking all of the homicides. She teams up with former toll cop Carl DeWitt as they start investigating with a little (very little) help from the state police.
The pacing of this novel was great; right from the beginning I was intrigued, from Tess and Whitney's hilarious attack on the predator, to the unsolved murders and the people involved. Crow and Whitney don't appear as often as usual, but we get to know Carl, a quirky but likeable character. (He's redheaded, covered in freckles, has a bum knee, and is obsessed with both movies and one of the homicides, the latter which led to his dismissal from the police force.) Interspersed with the narrative is the viewpoint of the murderer, who is watching Tess, though his motives are unclear. Even the murderer is interesting and oddly human.
Part of what I enjoy about Lippman's books is her character development. Even the minor characters are fleshed out enough so I enjoyed their reappearances throughout the book and could practically see them. Her books aren't just whodunnits. Lippman fans will really enjoy The Last Place.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

To recap: I'm reading through Lippman's oeuvre in chronological order, trying to figure out what allows certain crime authors to escape the genre and achieve some literary acclaim.

I believe this is the last Tess Monaghan before she started doing standalone novels.

The main aspect of this book that annoyed me was the interludes told from the point of view of the (of course) nameless male serial killer antagonist. Lippman's not the only one to do this, but it bugs me every single time. If you can't create tension and atmosphere with your main characters, it's time to let those characters go. If you can't keep the plot rolling in a detective novel (or police procedural (I'm looking at you, Mankell)), then I don't want to read your book.

I admit that this might not be everyone's pet peeve (judging by the reviews below it's clearly not), but it really prevented me from engaging with the book.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good LORD I'm tired of suspense novels involving the stalking of the protagonist as she investigates one or more cases that turn out to be related TO HER. Sorry, people who got killed but your deaths are actually about the person investigating them, not you. It's a weird sort of ego, I think--the character's so important that she can't just solve the crime, she has to be the center of it.

Now that that's off my chest, a decent read with Lippman's usually engaging characters, terrific sense of place, and involving writing. Would have been stronger without the stupidly neat "it's all about Tess" resolution. (This isn't a spoiler; it's made clear by the author from the very beginning; the suspense is in why.)

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had the potential to be better than the last couple, but it fell kind of flat. It was so very obvious from the beginning that she was going to have some kind of confrontation with some big killer (since we're in his head in the prologue) and that it was going to have something to do with Jonathan Ross (a few more whacks with the repetitive/redundancy stick and the reader would have suffered brain damage). With that setup I was rather hoping this would be the book in which Crow gets to come to her rescue (as he said back in book 3, to return the favor); but I feel like he was kind of emasculated instead.

[BJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I've read a book in this series. This one started off slow, so I kept putting it aside and picking up others. Then, about halfway through, it grabbed my attention and kept it. Then, I didn't want to put it aside at all, I just wanted to sit and finish it ASAP. In this episode, Tess gets into a little trouble and ends up with court-mandated anger management for 6 months. Her friend Whitney gets her involved in a "project" looking for problems with police and domestic violence cases. Tess ends up with an ex-cop for a partner and a stalker of sorts. In the end, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next in the series.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this series very much. In this installment, Tess Monaghan is put on probation after she is arrested for attacking a pedeophile. She is hired by her friend Whitney to work for her foundation's board to review some old cold cases that involve domestic violence. As Tess begins to review the cases, it becomes clear that there is a link between the cases and that the murderer is not finished yet. Very well written and I love Ms. Lippman's style of writing. It grabs you and keeps you reading until you're done.