Aloha to Laura Lippman and WILDE LAKE - set in my backyard!

Reminder: I have a special giveaway for Military Appreciation Month at this link.

I am flying to Tampa Florida today to help my son pack up his dorm room after his first year of college! Unfortunately, I will miss Laura Lippman speaking at the Columbia library near Wilde Lake ... just a few miles from my house!  I am looking froward to reading WILDE LAKE:

Luisa “Lu” Brant is the newly elected—and first female—state’s attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It’s not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard county doesn’t see many homicides.

As Lu prepares for the trial, the case dredges up painful memories, reminding her small but tight-knit family of the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man’s life. Only eighteen, AJ was cleared by a grand jury. Now, Lu wonders if the events of 1980 happened as she remembers them. What details might have been withheld from her when she was a child?

The more she learns about the case, the more questions arise. What does it mean to be a man or woman of one’s times? Why do we ask our heroes of the past to conform to the present’s standards? Is that fair? Is it right? Propelled into the past, she discovers that the legal system, the bedrock of her entire life, does not have all the answers. Lu realizes that even if she could learn the whole truth, she probably wouldn’t want to.

Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light.

Howard County is seeped in railroad history

Another alumni of Wilde Lake High School is actor Edward Norton - he is the grandson of the founder of Columbia, Maryland - a planned community. Does anyone famous hail from your town, county, and/or state? One randomly selected commenter wins a book choice from my covnention stash. Comments are open through Saturday, May 14, 10 pm in Baltimore. I'll post the winner on Sunday, May 15.

Mahalo,

Kim in Baltimore

Aloha Spirit in Charm City

Check out Mary Gramlich's review of WILDE LAKE at this link.

Howard County offers green spaces