Laura Lippman

Lippman was born in Atlanta, Georgia and raised in Columbia, Maryland. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman, Jr., a writer at The Baltimore Sun, and Madeline Mabry Lippman, now retired as a school librarian for the Baltimore City Public School System. Her paternal grandfather was Jewish, and the remainder of her ancestry is Scots-Irish. Lippman was raised Presbyterian. She attended high school in Columbia, Maryland, where she was the captain of the Wilde Lake High School It's Academic team. She also participated in several dramatic productions, including Finian's Rainbow, The Lark, and Barefoot in the Park. She graduated from Wilde Lake High School in 1977.

Lippman is a former reporter for the now defunct San Antonio Light and The Baltimore Sun. She is best known for writing a series of novels set in Baltimore and featuring Tess Monaghan, a reporter turned private investigator. Lippman's works have won the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, Nero, Gumshoe and Shamus awards. What the Dead Know (2007), was the first of her books to make the New York Times Best Seller list, and was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award.

In addition to the Tess Monaghan novels, Lippman has written works independent of that character. Her novel Every Secret Thing was adapted as a 2014 movie starring Diane Lane. Her novel Lady in the Lake was adapted as a limited series for Apple TV.

Lippman lives in the South Baltimore neighborhood of Federal Hill and frequently writes in the neighborhood coffee shop Spoons. In addition to writing, she teaches at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, just outside Baltimore. In January 2007, Lippman taught at the 3rd Annual Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College. In March 2013, she was the guest of honor at Left Coast Crime.

The character Bunk is shown to be reading one of her books, In a Strange City, in episode eight of the first season of The Wire. Lippman appeared in a scene in the first episode of the last season of The Wire as a reporter working in the Baltimore Sun newsroom.

In 2000, Lippman began dating and soon living with David Simon, another former Baltimore Sun reporter. He became the creator and an executive producer of the HBO series The Wire (which premiered in 2002). They lived in a "narrow brick row house", in Baltimore's Federal Hill neighborhood.

In 2006, Lippman married Simon in a ceremony officiated by filmmaker John Waters. She had been married to another man for seven years, which ended in a "difficult divorce." Simon had been married twice before. Lippman and Simon have a daughter who was born in 2010.

Lippman and Simon separated in 2020, divorcing in 2024. The two continue to co-parent their daughter.

In a Strange City (2001) was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

What the Dead Know was a New York Times Best Seller.

In 2014, Lippman won the inaugural Pinckley Prize for a Distinguished Body of Work.

Tess Monaghan series

• Baltimore Blues (1997). ISBN 0380788756
• Charm City (1997). ISBN 0380788764
• Butchers Hill (1998). ISBN 0380798468
• In Big Trouble (1999). ISBN 0380798476
• The Sugar House (2000). ISBN 0380978172
• In a Strange City (2001). ISBN 0380978180
• The Last Place (2002). ISBN 0380978199
• By A Spider's Thread (2004). ISBN 0060506695
• No Good Deeds (2006). ISBN 978-0060570729
• Another Thing to Fall (2008). ISBN 978-0061128875
• The Girl in the Green Raincoat (2011). ISBN 978-0061938368
• Hush, Hush (2015). ISBN 978-0062083425

Short stories

• "Orphans' Court" (1999) (short story in First Cases: Volume 3, edited by Robert J. Randisi)
• "Ropa Vieja" (2001) (short story in Murderers Row, edited by Otto Penzler)
• "The Shoeshine Man's Regrets" (2004) (short story in Murder and All That Jazz, edited by Robert J. Randisi)

Standalone works

Novels

• Every Secret Thing (2004). ISBN 0060506679
• To The Power of Three (2005). ISBN 0060506725
• What the Dead Know (2007). ISBN 978-0061128851 (Little Sister in the UK)
• Life Sentences (2009). ISBN 978-0061128899
• I'd Know You Anywhere (2010). ISBN 978-0061706554 (Don't Look Back in the UK)
• The Most Dangerous Thing (2011). ISBN 978-0061706516
• And When She Was Good (2012). ISBN 978-0061706875
• After I'm Gone (2014). ISBN 978-0062083395
• Wilde Lake (2016). ISBN 978-0062083456
• Sunburn (2018). ISBN 978-0062389923
• Lady in the Lake (2019). ISBN 978-0062390011
• Dream Girl: A Novel (2021). ISBN 978-0063204652
• Prom Mom (2023). ISBN 9780062998064
• Murder Takes A Vacation (2025). ISBN 978-0062998101

Short story collections

• Baltimore Noir (2006). ISBN 978-1888451962 (editor and contributed one story)
• Hardly Knew Her: Stories (2008). ISBN 978-0061584992
• Seasonal Work: Stories (2022). ISBN 978-0063000032

Memoir

• Summer of Fall (2023). ISBN 978-1094455402 (Scribd original)