Fortune Favours the Dead - Stephen Spotswood

 

Description

*CHOSEN FOR THE BBC RADIO 2 BOOKCLUB!* 

The first in the brilliant new Pentecost and Parker series, FORTUNE FAVOURS THE DEAD is a hugely entertaining murder mystery set in 1940s New York City.

New York, 1946. Lillian Pentecost is the most successful private detective in the city, but her health is failing. She hires an assistant to help with the investigative legwork. Willowjean Parker is a circus runaway. Quick-witted and street-smart, she's a jack-of-all-trades with a unique skill-set. She can pick locks blindfolded, wrestle men twice her size, and throw knives with deadly precision - all of which come in handy working for Ms P.

When wealthy young widow Abigail Collins is murdered and the police are making no progress, Pentecost and Parker are hired by the family to track down the culprit. On Halloween night, there was a costume party at the Collins' mansion, where a fortune teller performed a séance which greatly disturbed Abigail. Several hours later her body was discovered bludgeoned to death in her late husband's office. Problem is, the door to the office was locked from the inside. There was no-one else in the room, and the murder weapon was beside the victim; the fortune teller's crystal ball.

It looks like an impossible crime, but Pentecost and Parker know there is no such thing...

Review

I love a good mystery, but the book made me wait a really long time to find out whodunnit.

We meet Will, who has run away from the circus, with a great set of skills that set her in good stead to be the sidekick of Lillian Pentecost - detective. After the initial introduction of how they met we skip forward a few years to their latest mystery. A dead body in a locked room after a séance. 

This book has a lot going for it. Set in the 1940s with a strong female lead (well two in fact) and a mystery to solve. Unfortunately it felt like a chore to get through it at times. Every so often I would wonder why they didn't just use their mobile phone and then remembered it was the 1940s. A little more scene setting would have made for it to feel more like the 1940s.

I thought I had this one solved early on but then events later in the book put paid to my theory and I was in the dark once more. I really liked the character of Will a go getter and up for anything. The writing was good on action but it moved too slowly for me overall.  I also liked the representation of different factions of society within the book. I could see this being great on screen.

I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC and I appear to have also bought the book from Amazon!