Murder Crossed Her Mind - Pentecost and Parker #4

Murder Crossed Her Mind is the 4th Pentecost & Parker PI mystery by Stephen Spotswood. Released 5th Dec 2023 by Doubleday, it's 384 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.

This is a historical PI mystery set in NYC in the immediate aftermath of WW2. An elderly woman with an eidetic memory goes missing and Pentecost & Parker are called in to locate her. There are several intertwining plotlines and the author does a remarkably good job of keeping them straight, braiding them together, and twisting the denouement into a satisfying pretzel of a solution.

The characters are appealing (or deviously despicable), well rendered, and believable. It's not derivative at all, but the setup is very much reminiscent of Stout's inimitable Nero Wolfe mysteries. Investigations  office is located in a NYC brownstone with a brilliant and crafty investigative mind, assisted by a practical strong-arm gumshoe (who narrates the stories). There's even an irascible cook/factotum. The twist is that all of them are female in this case, and Lillian Pentecost is limited by an illness, not her size. There are, however, no orchids.

There are significant relationship elements included which are LGBTQIA+ friendly/non-judgemental. The sexism and homophobia of the era are included and graphic in some scenes and could be distressing. The violence isn't superfluous to the plot, but it is present. 

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 10 hours 11 minutes and is expertly read by Kirsten Potter. She has a well trained classical delivery and manages the voices (with accents from Bronx to Scottish brogue) clearly and well. Her timing is excellent and she delineates the characters clearly. Listeners won't have trouble keeping them straight. Sound and production quality are high throughout the read. 

Four stars. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.