Laura Lippman has been mixing it up lately. Long known as a top-notch crime fiction writer, two years ago she delivered a terrific essay collection, “My Life as a Villainess.” Last year she turned to psychological horror with the deliciously twisty “Dream Girl.”

Her new book, “Seasonal Work,” is a short story collection. Some writers are good at novels but not short stories (or the other way around); Lippman aces both.

She tells us in her afterword that, except for “Just One More,” a newly written novella that closes the book, its 11 short stories were written between 2007 and 2019 on request for different collections. She could have fooled me. They all read as variations on a theme — girls and women trying to fight back in a world that often doesn’t value them.

The title story is a compelling example. Its first-person narrator, whose name is Kathy (or maybe not), seems like a typical 14-year-old. She’s worried about a zit because a newspaper photographer is shooting photos of her and her family — stepfather Gary and her three younger half siblings — for one of those holiday heartstrings stories. Seems someone broke into the family’s minivan and stole all the kids’ Christmas presents. Gary and the kids, down on their luck, are staying in a Baltimore hotel room until they can get on their feet.

The newspaper story is followed by TV coverage, and help from the public pours in. Kathy has seen it all before, for several Christmases in a row, in whatever town Gary decides will be “just right.” Her sardonic tone makes the tale seem like a nearly harmless grift at first, but it will turn much darker.

That story also marks the return of Tess Monaghan, Lippman’s beloved series detective. She’s the central character in the creepy but touching story “The Book Thing,” and Tess’ parents take center stage in “The Everyday Housewife,” set in the 1970s, an era it captures in telling, and often funny, detail.