"Well-plotted, well-written, clear-eyed. I never saw the end coming. There's a hell of a one-two punch waiting for you." --Stephen King New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman tells the story of Amber Glass, desperately trying to get away from her tabloid past but compulsively drawn back to the city of her youth and the prom date who destroyed everything she was reaching for. Amber Glass has spent her entire adult life putting as much distance as possible between her and her hometown of Baltimore, where she fears she will forever be known as "Prom Mom"--the girl who allegedly killed her baby on the night of the prom after her date, Joe Simpson, abandoned her to pursue the girl he really liked. But when circumstances bring Amber back to the city, she realizes she can have a second chance--as long as she stays away from Joe, now a successful commercial real estate developer, married to a plastic surgeon, Meredith, to whom he is devoted. The problem is, Amber can't stay away from Joe. And Joe finds that it's increasingly hard for him to ignore Amber, if only because she remembers the boy he was and the man he said he was going to be. Against the surreal backdrop of 2020 and early 2021, the two are slowly drawn to each other and eventually cross the line they've been trying not to cross. And then Joe asks Amber to help him do the unthinkable . . . and she must decide if she is willing to let their toxic and dangerous past repeat itself.

Private investigator Tess Monaghan is called upon by the editors at Baltimore's "Beacon-Light" newspaper to find out how an exposé they had killed about the muckraking past of "Wink" Wynkowski, a business tycoon trying to bring professional basketball to the city, ended up on the front page, leading to Wynkowski's apparent suicide.

Hailed as one of the best crime fiction writers in America today, New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman now reveals another level of her mastery. Each of these ingenious tales is a gem—including the Edgar and Anthony awards-nominated story, Scratch a Woman , in which Lippman takes us deep into the private world of a high-priced call girl/madam and devoted soccer mom, exploring the mystery of what may, in fact, be written in the blood. Sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, always filled with delightfully unanticipated twists and reversals, here are enthralling excursions to the dark side from "one of today's most pleasing storytellers" ( San Diego Union-Tribune ).