By a Spider's Thread: A Tess Monaghan Novel (41 page)
Read By a Spider's Thread: A Tess Monaghan Novel Online
Authors: Laura Lippman
Quite a few folks did their best to help Tess and me grasp the finer points of Orthodox Judaism as it might be practiced by the characters in this book. These included Bernard Simon, Suzanne Balaban, Rafael Alvarez, and Sarah Weinman. I also relied on a wide range of reference books, such as
This Is My God,
Herman Wouk;
The Jewish Book of Why,
Alfred J. Kolatch;
Fables of a Jewish Aesop,
translated by Moses Hadas;
A Guide to Jewish Prayer,
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz; and
Essential Judaism,
George Robinson. Any errors are my own. But I also invoke the novelist’s prerogative to make stuff up, especially when it comes to the ever-changing social-services bureaucracy.
Much of this book was written on the premises of Spoons, so thank you to Karen, Mike, Neil, Morgan, and everyone else at that lovely oasis.
It should be noted that this story was inspired very loosely by the real-life experiences of the late Victor Persico. I met and interviewed Victor in the early 1990s while working for the Baltimore
Sun,
but the article was spiked for complicated reasons. Victor was a gentle soul, and I wish that the world had had a chance to know the full story of his devotion to his three sons, a devotion that transcended anything I could ever invent. This is much too little, much too late.
Laura Lippman was a newspaper reporter at the Baltimore
Sun
for twelve years. Her Tess Monaghan novels —
The Last Place, The Sugar House, Baltimore Blues, Charm City, Butchers Hill,
and
In Big Trouble
— have won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony, and Nero Wolfe Awards, and
In a Strange City
was named a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel
Every Secret Thing.
Lippman lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Every Secret Thing
The Last Place
In a Strange City
The Sugar House
In Big Trouble
Butchers Hill
Charm City
Baltimore Blues
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BY A SPIDER’S THREAD. Copyright © 2004 by Laura Lippman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound
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Mobipocket Reader June 2004 eISBN 0-06-077649-8
FIRST EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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By a Spider's Thread
Laura Lippman
2004
novel
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eISBN 0-06-077649-8
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Copyright © 2004 by Laura Lippman