This week, Baltimore author Laura Lippman releases her new book, Life Sentences. As part of the launch, she'll appear Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. at the Charles Village Barnes & Noble and at 7 p.m. at the Enoch Pratt Central Library. Here's a review by Oline Cogdill, who writes regularly on mysteries for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and often contributes her views here:

A memory can be fragile, fleeting and not all together reliable, but it also can have the power to sustain a life commitment. Several people can experience the same event at the exact time, yet each have a different interpretation.

These vagaries are at the crux of Baltimore author Laura Lippman’s engrossing 14th novel. Not a conventional mystery, Life Sentences is a stunning look at the mystery of life and the gulf between people. Taking her fourth break from her usual heroine, private detective Tess Monaghan, Lippman again shows why she is one of today’s most important authors. Life Sentences is a fresh look at contemporary relationships filtered through the prism of memories, racism, economics and jealousy.

Cassandra Fallows’ two memoirs about growing up in a racially-charged Baltimore in the last 1960s have brought her money and fame. The true stories of this white girl and her four black friends and her father’s remarriage to a black woman were well received, but her novel has barely earned modest sales. Cassandra’s idea for another nonfiction may be her way back to the best-sellers list. What happened to her grade school classmate, Calliope Jenkins, who spent seven years in prison for refusing to answer questions about the disappearance of the infant son she was suspected of murdering?