AFTER I'M GONE

The disappearance of a Baltimore gambling lord sends shock waves through his community, his business and his family.

Felix Brewer always knew the odds were rigged. So, with the feds poised to put him away for 15 years, he has girlfriend Julie Saxony drive him to Philly in her sister’s horse trailer to hop a plane to Montreal and then disappear. He knows that his best friends, lawyer Bert Gelman and bail bondsman Tubby Schroeder, will close down his business. And he trusts his wife, Bambi, to take care of herself and his three daughters, Linda, Rachel and Michelle. But how could Felix leave it all—the place he made for himself at the heart of Baltimore’s Jewish community, the luxury and respectability he bought with every illegally bet dollar, and most of all, the love of his life? Since the night he’d crashed a high school dance, Bert, already an established businessman, knew Bambi Gottschalk would be the center of his world. And she was, despite Julie and the string of girls who preceded her. The story of Bambi and her daughters unfolds: struggles, successes, good marriages and bad. Then the discovery of Julie’s body in Leakin Park brings it all back to Felix. Who intercepted Julie, whose success parlaying the modest coffee shop Felix left her into a bed-and-breakfast positioned her to open a destination restaurant, on her way to Saks? Sandy Sanchez, an ex-cop who specializes in cold cases, hopes to find out.

Coaxing the inevitable out of the improbable, Lippman (And When She Was Good, 2012, etc.) is a bet you just can’t lose.