Laura Lippman is new to me; I feel fortunate to have come upon her, especially since there are no new Pelekanos books out there yet. There are common threads between the two but Ms. Lippman has her unique voice.

Having compared her favorably to my favorite author, I now will qualify this opinion by saying that I did not "buy" the story line of the DEA and FBI agents. She managed to keep my attention through skillful characterizations of Tess, Crow and Lloyd. I did care about them.

I will keep reading her and report back; I know there are five-star reads among her long list of books.