Laura Lippman on her mystery novels, crime and Tess Monaghan, P.I.

Best-selling novelist Laura Lippman talks about her time as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun, her Tess Monaghan detective stories, and her latest stand-alone, “Life Sentences.“ She started with Tess, a broad-shouldered, food-loving former reporter turned private investigator, who is the protagonist in ten of Lippman’s books. But Lippman also does what she calls “cross-training,“ writing short stories and stand-alones, like “Every Secret Thing,“ “What the Dead Know“ and her recent book, called “Life Sentences,“ about a memoirist who returns to Baltimore to write a book about one of her elementary school classmates involved in a long-ago crime. She’s won most of mystery writers’ prestigious awards -- the Agatha, the Quill, Nero Wolfe, the Edgar, Anthony, Gumshoe and the Shamus. And she’s taken crime writing beyond genre to cross over into the New York Times bestseller list. The Washington Post says Lippman is “one of the best novelists aroun