Murder Under Her Skin by Stephen Spotswood

 

First Line: "The prosecution calls Lillian Pentecost to the stand."

 

As private detectives Lillian Pentecost and Willowjean "Will" Parker finish a high-profile case in New York City, Will gets word that Ruby Donner, the Amazing Tattooed Woman, has been killed and her knife-throwing mentor, Valentin Kalishenko, is in jail for murder. Not only was Ruby the first person to befriend Will when she ran away to the circus as a teenager, Will knows that Kalishenko could not have killed her. In no time flat, the two women board a train for Virginia and Hart & Halloway's Traveling Circus and Sideshow.

What they find is a rattlesnake den of old grudges, local crime, and secrets someone is willing to kill for. It doesn't take long for the two to realize that they are up to their necks in lies, and Will finds it hard to swallow that her friends in the circus aren't being straight with her. Determined to identify Ruby's killer and to free her teacher, Will finds herself dodging fistfights, Molotov cocktails, and bullets in her search for truth.

 

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This second book in Stephen Spotswood's Pentecost & Parker historical mystery series, Murder Under Her Skin, is even better than the first (Fortune Favors the Dead). World-famous detective Lillian Pentecost and her protégée Willowjean "Will" Parker are a rare combination in crime fiction. Pentecost has a mind like the proverbial steel trap, a glass eye, and multiple sclerosis. Teenage Will Parker ran away from an abusive situation at home and finally spent five years in a circus before joining Pentecost. It's not often that readers come across two hardboiled female gumshoes, but Pentecost and Parker excel in their roles. 

 

Taking Will back to Hart & Halloway's Traveling Circus lets readers learn more of her backstory, and the small circus setting in 1946 rural Virginia is so well done that I felt as though I were right in the thick of things. Will finds it hard to believe that the people she considers family are lying to her, and it makes her uncomfortable knowing that Pentecost may learn things about her past that Will doesn't necessarily want her to know. 

 

Murder Under Her Skin is told in Will's irreverent voice, and I love it. She has an excellent turn of phrase, whether it be in describing the sounds a group of tarantulas make when it's on the move, or in noticing that no one sits in a dead man's chair when she visits someone's home. One of my favorites? When Will describes an ill-tempered guard dog of a secretary: "She kept a close eye on us from the gunner's turret of her desk." The mental picture that immediately sprang to my mind was perfection.

Another piece of perfection was the mystery itself. Spotswood has crafted a mystery that kept me completely in the dark from beginning to end, and once everything was revealed, I could see where he'd planted his clues all along the way. I read a boatload of crime fiction, so I love it when an author can do this to me.

Stephen Spotswood's Pentecost & Parker series has become one of my favorites in just two books. I can't wait to see what these two get up to in their next investigation.

Murder Under Her Skin by Stephen Spotswood

eISBN: 9780385547154

Doubleday © 2021

eBook, 368 pages

 

Historical Mystery, #2 Pentecost & Parker mystery

Rating: A

Source: Net Galley

Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood

First Line: The first time I met Lillian Pentecost, I nearly caved her skull in with a piece of lead pipe.

 

Little did circus runaway Willowjean "Will" Parker know that saving the life of Lillian Pentecost with her knife-throwing skills would change her life. She didn't realize that she was saving the life of New York City's finest and most unorthodox private investigator.

 

Pentecost's multiple sclerosis means that she's not able to keep up with her case load, and she wants to hire Will as her right-hand woman. In return, Will will receive a salary, room and board, and training in Pentecost's methods of investigation.

 

Three years later, the two are on the Abigail Collins case, the case of a rich woman who was bludgeoned to death with a crystal ball during a booze-laced Halloween party in her home. Rumors are flying that the woman was killed by the vengeful spirit of her husband, who committed suicide in the same chair in which Abigail's body was found. The police can't seem to find any answers, so the Collins family hires Pentecost. 

 

The case proves to be even trickier than Will expected. There's a spiritualist involved whom Pentecost has had her eye on for years, and then there's Becca Collins, the gorgeous daughter of Abigail whom Will finds herself falling for. Will the two investigators be able to navigate all the twists and turns in order to bring a killer to justice?

 

~

 

I feel as though Fortune Favors the Dead should win some sort of special award. You see, it's the first audiobook I've listened to that didn't put me to sleep in under thirty seconds. Granted, I wised up and had my knitting needles busy while I was listening, but I think the book would have kept me awake regardless. 

 

Stephen Spotswood has written an engaging story set in 1940s New York City that has a hint of noir, a dash of humor, and two unusual and mesmerizing characters in Willowjean "Will" Parker and her boss, Lillian Pentecost. It's not often that you read a mystery that involves a female circus runaway and a middle-aged woman with multiple sclerosis and a glass eye. Will is the book's voice, and that voice drew me right into the story with its sass and spark. She kept me listening as the story unfolded, and I didn't even particularly mind that the identity of the killer wasn't that difficult to deduce.

As a novice audiobook listener, it hasn't taken me long to learn that the narrator has a lot to do with a book's success. I found that the narrator of this book, Kirsten Potter, was perfect. Her Will was smart and sassy and her Lillian was calm and determined. She did a good job of creating different voices for all the characters even though I don't find that to be a necessity. (Just don't have a run-of-the-mill voice that drones.) In fact, I found Potter to be so good that Spotswood's series is one that I'll continue to follow in audiobook format. Now all I have to do is wait patiently for Pentecost and Parker to make another appearance. 

Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood

Narrated by Kirsten Potter.

ASIN: B085J1TKR2

Random House Audio © 2020

Audiobook. 8 hours, 31 minutes.

 

Historical Mystery, #1 Pentecost & Parker mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Audible.