Murder Crossed Her Mind

 Murder Crossed Her Mind is the fourth of five novels in the Pentecost and Parker Murder Mystery Series by Stephen Spotswood. This book was published in 2023, but the story is set in New York City in 1947. I got to this series as the result of the New York Times annual book review which suggested that the fifth book was the best crime novel written in 2025. At Men Reading Books, we’ve reviewed more than 1,000 authors and now 1,848 books, which were mostly about crime, mystery, espionage, and murder. We’ve identified very talented writers who rarely get mentioned by the Times as being worthy of such awards, so I was compelled to see if I could agree with a critic who made such an audacious claim about Spotswood's fifth book. So, for background, I've read and reviewed the first four books in the series before getting to what the critic claimed was the best one.  

The protagonists in these novels are Lillian Pentecost who is reputed to have the best crime-solving mind in New York City, and her assistant, Will Parker. Both characters do have fascinating and unique personal histories, although through the first four stories, the reader learns much more about Will than Lillian. Lillian’s history is scheduled to be revealed in more detail in the fifth book, Death in the Frame. Over the course of the first four books, many murders are solved and more interesting characters are revealed. In Murder Crossed Her Mind, an elderly woman, Vera Bodine, who is renowned for her photographic memory, turns up missing. Later, her body is found buried in a large trunk in her own apartment, covered in bags of lavender sachet. Meanwhile, the tough Will Parker finds ways to get repeatedly beaten up as the result of her willingness to charge into dangerous situations without any self-regard. Meanwhile, the plots and subplots are involved with federal agents, Nazi spies, and the wealthy Jessup Quincannon who has discovered a secret from Lillian’s past that he has threatened to reveal.

 

I’ve been entertained enough to keep reading this series, and at last I’m ready to take on “the best crime novel of 2025.” I thought this fourth book was probably the weakest of the series, but the exploits of the two main characters have kept me interested. I also found, at times, that the wise-cracking Will is too much over the top.