Murder Crossed Her Mind: A Pentecost and Parker Mystery

by Stephen Spotswood

Hardcover, 2023

Call number

MYST SPOT

Publication

Doubleday (2023), 384 pages

Description

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * The latest action-packed installment in the Nero Award-winning Pentecost & Parker Mystery series follows Lillian and Will tracking the suspicious disappearance of a woman who might have known too much. From the author of Fortune Favors the Dead and Murder Under Her Skin. Vera Bodine, an elderly shut-in with an exceptional memory, has gone missing and famed detective Lillian Pentecost and her crackerjack assistant Willowjean "Will" Parker have been hired to track her down. But the New York City of 1947 can be a dangerous place, and there's no shortage of people who might like to get ahold of what's in Bodine's head.  Does her disappearance have to do with the high-profile law firm whose secrets she still keeps; the violent murder of a young woman, with which Bodine had lately become obsessed; or is it the work she did with the FBI hunting Nazi spies intent on wartime sabotage? Any and all are on the suspect list, including their client, Forest Whitsun, hotshot defense attorney and no friend to Pentecost and Parker.  The clock is ticking to get Bodine back alive, but circumstances conspire to pull both investigators away from the case. Will is hot on the trail of a stickup team who are using her name--and maybe her gun--for their own ends. While Lillian again finds herself up against murder-obsessed millionaire Jessup Quincannon, who has discovered a secret from her past--something he plans to use to either rein the great detective in . . . or destroy her.  To solve this mystery, and defeat their own personal demons, the pair will have to go nose-to-nose with murderous gangsters, make deals with conniving federal agents, confront Nazi spies, and bend their own ethical rules to the point of breaking. Before time runs out for everyone.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member jillrhudy
I love Lillian Pentecost and Willowjean "Will" Parker so much that the author can literally throw 50 characters at me without my DNFing a title in this series, and it seemed as though this book had at least that many. Hopefully in the follow-up outing, the plot will narrow the cast of characters
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down considerably so that I don't get so confused. The detective asking the detectives to solve a murder in which a victim was asking that yet another mystery be solved/murderer be detected, with additional detectives horning in on both murders, mixed with various mysterious side plots, is a big ask.

Will's voice was a bit different which was a risk; Will's narrative voice is what makes the series. I am willing for her to mature (a bit) but I don't want her changed too much. But this is my girl, jumping in and taking insane chances left and right, both with her life and with her heart. She is much more protective of Pentecost than she is of herself. As some of the issues she was struggling with resolved during the book, she was more of her old wisecracking self.
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LibraryThing member MM_Jones
Another excellent adventure from Stephen Spotswood in the award-winning Pentecost and Parker mystery series. Set in 1947 New York City, MURDER CROSSED HER MIND has unforgettable characters along with smart writing and plotting. Book four in the series, but the reader should start at beginning to
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really appreciate the characters.
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LibraryThing member bookappeal
Spotswood delivers another Pentecost and Parker novel with clever, intricate plotting plus smart, sassy humor, featuring two distinctive female characters in the 1940s who outwit the police as well as the criminals but are not without their personal hang-ups and flaws. Lillian Pentecost battles
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with the physical limitations of multiple sclerosis but her mind is sharp as a tack. Willowjean "Will" Parker is her much younger protégé, eager to learn from an investigative master but no mental slouch herself. And Will has a big, brave heart. Each entry in the series offers multiple mysteries, plotted to perfection. The narrative structure takes the form of Will recording their adventures later in a book written to the reader which allows for a lot of well-placed, funny asides. This device becomes a little problematic when wrapping up of the main mystery because Will cannot reveal her every move, as she does throughout the first 3/4 of the book, or there won't be any surprises in the denouement. It's a small thing to overlook, especially in such a strong series with intriguing ongoing subplots and gradual developments in the complex relationship between Will and Mrs P, two independent and fiercely private women.
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LibraryThing member pgchuis
These are consistently excellent, narrated with humour and verve by Willowjean, and with a real sense of the period. Here Lilian and Will are asked to find a hoarder with a photographic memory who has disappeared (despite being a shut-in), and Will gets mugged, but is too embarrassed to tell her
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boss.

I grasped the significance of the odd clue, but didn't come close to solving it. Highly recommended.
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Pages

384

ISBN

0385549288 / 9780385549288
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