Laura Lippman - Charm City

Now, if Feeney were here, he would have quoted poetry, pointing out there would be world enough and time, or that we must love one another or die. But Feeney was at home, sleeping the contented sleep of a reporter with a great story. Besides, as his good buddy Auden liked to say, poetry never made anything happen .

Kitty would have said something at once maddeningly wise and banal, the lover de nuit bobbing his head in dreamy agreement. Tyner would have recommended stepping up her workouts: no time for your heart to hurt while your muscles were sore. Spike would advise playing the odds.

And inscrutable Whitney was in scrutable Japan, where it was already tomorrow. Perhaps Tess should call her and find out what the next day held. No-she'd much rather be surprised.

LAURA LIPPMANwas a newspaper reporter at the Baltimore Sun for fifteen years. Her Tess Monaghan novels- Baltimore Blues , Charm City , Butchers Hill , In Big Trouble , The Sugar House , and The Last Place -have won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony and Nero Wolfe awards, and her novel, In a Strange City , was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her latest standalone crime novel, Every Secret Thing , was published by William Morrow in September 2003.