Secrets Typed in Blood
A Pentecost and Parker Mystery
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4.3 • 67 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR • In the newest entry into the Nero Award-winning Pentecost & Parker Mystery series, Lillian and Will are hot on the trail of a serial killer whose murders are stranger than fiction.
The Pentecost & Parker series "takes gritty 40s noir, shakes it up, gives it a charming twist, and serves it up with unforgettable style" (Deanna Raybourn, author of the Veronica Speedwell Mysteries). From the author of Fortune Favors the Dead and Murder Under Her Skin.
New York City, 1947: For years, Holly Quick has made a good living off of murder, filling up the pages of pulp detective magazines with gruesome tales of revenge. Now someone is bringing her stories to life and leaving a trail of blood-soaked bodies behind. With the threat of another murder looming, and reluctant to go to the police, Holly turns to the best crime-solving duo in or out of the pulps, Willowjean “Will” Parker and her boss, famed detective Lillian Pentecost.
The pair are handed the seemingly-impossible task of investigating three murders at once without tipping off the cops or the press that the crimes are connected. A tall order made even more difficult by the fact that Will is already signed up to spend her daylight hours undercover as a guileless secretary in the hopes of digging up a lead on an old adversary, Dr. Olivia Waterhouse.
But even if Will is stuck in pencil skirts and sensible shoes, she’s not about to let her boss have all the fun. Soon she’s diving into an underground world of people obsessed with murder and the men and women who commit them. Can the killer be found in the Black Museum Club, run by a philanthropist whose collection of grim murder memorabilia may not be enough to satisfy his lust for the homicidal? Or is it Holly Quick’s pair of editors, who read about murder all day, but clearly aren’t telling the full story?
With victims seemingly chosen at random and a murderer who thrives on spectacle, the case has the great Lillian Pentecost questioning her methods. But whatever she does, she’d better do it fast. Holly Quick has a secret, too and it’s about to bring death right to Pentecost and Parker’s doorstep.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's 1947 in Spotswood's strong third mystery featuring Lillian Pentecost, "the greatest detective in New York City," and her assistant, Willowjean "Will" Parker (after 2021's Murder Under Her Skin), and the duo's newest client, Holly Quick, arrives with a particularly knotty problem. "Somebody is stealing my murders," Holly declares. A prolific writer for a pulp magazine called Strange Crimes, she's certain that someone is using the details in the stories she pens under the name Horace Bellow as the basis for three recent murders. Indeed, the descriptions of a hanging in Stuyvesant Square, a stabbing in Sunnyside, and a suspicious death at an antique shop on the Upper East Side all closely match her stories. Holly wants the detectives to investigate, but without tipping their hand to the cops, as it seems she has some secrets of her own to protect. Spotswood plays fair with readers in a complex plot offering plenty of vivid characters, clever dialogue, and plausible suspects. Pentecost and Parker are a great crime-fighting partnership whose popularity is bound to increase.
