In A Strange City by Laura Lippman

 

Private investigator Tess Monaghan didn't like this client from the start.  A small, roundish man, he reminded her of a pig.  Something about his story didn't ring true.  He claimed to have been scammed out of a priceless necklace, one that the wife of Napoleon's brother had owned.  He said that he knew who had it and how to get it back.

Every year, on Edgar Allen Poe's birthday, an anonymous figure leaves three roses and a half-full bottle of wine on his gravestone.  It was a Baltimore legend and no one had ever found out who it was.  But this man said he knew and knew the man was the one who stole his necklace.  He wants Tess to go there that night and follow the man home so he would know where he lived.

It just didn't sound right.  Add in the fact that Tess, like most natives of Baltimore, didn't really want for the anonymous figure to be identified and it was easy to turn the case down.  But it stirred her curiosity and that of her boyfriend and they decided to go that night and view the event.  It ends in tragedy when two figures instead of the expected one arrive and when one is shot and killed.

Now there are bigger questions, questions of murder.  As Tess works the case, she runs into unique characters in the antique business and another female PI who isn't afraid to get physical and who seems to have a real grudge against Tess.  There is also a reference librarian who helps her with information about Poe and a newspaper reporter who always gives her good ideas.  Along the way, Tess starts to get roses and threatening notes and she appears to be the killer's next target.  Can she solve the case?

This is the sixth novel in the Tess Monaghan series.  Tess is an interesting character; a former newspaper reporter whose nose for scandal and ability to see ahead led her to her new career as a private investigator.  The author's love for Baltimore shows through in these books and the reader will learn lots of interesting facts about the city and its inhabitants.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.