1 of 1 copy available
“A delight.... It’s a pleasure to watch [Pentecost and Parker] sifting through red herrings and peeling secrets back like layers of an onion.” The New York Times Book Review
Someone’s put a blade in the back of the Amazing Tattooed Woman, and Willowjean “Will” Parker’s former knife-throwing mentor has been stitched up for the crime. To uncover the truth, Will and her boss, world-famous detective Lillian Pentecost, travel to the circus, where they find a snake pit of old grudges, small-town crime, and secrets worth killing for.
Will called Hart & Halloway’s Traveling Circus and Sideshow home for five years, and Ruby Donner, the circus’s tattooed ingenue, was her friend. To make matters worse, the prime suspect is Valentin Kalishenko, the man who taught Will everything she knows about putting a knife where it needs to go.
To uncover the real killer and keep Kalishenko from a date with the electric chair, Will and Ms. Pentecost join the circus in sleepy Stoppard, Virginia, where the locals like their cocktails mild, the past buried, and big-city detectives not at all. The two swiftly find themselves lost in a funhouse of lies as Will begins to realize that her former circus compatriots aren’t playing it straight, and that her murdered friend might have been hiding a lot of secrets beneath all that ink.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
December 7, 2021 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593455494
- File size: 278538 KB
- Duration: 09:40:17
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 1, 2022
In their second outing (following Fortune Favors the Dead), private eye Lillian Pentecost and assistant sleuth Willowjean Parker head south to investigate the stabbing death of someone from Will's circus days, hopeful that they'll clear her old knife-throwing mentor's name in the process. As Watsonian chronicler to the brilliant Pentecost, Parker is the point-of-view character, and while she sees a lot, the well-plotted solution should satisfy genre fans with surprise payoffs to subtle setups. Narrator Kirsten Potter supplies the perfect voice as wryly assertive Will, for an overall engaging listen offset by one or two clownish accents nevertheless suited to the postwar showbiz setting. Her Pentecost, too, fits the character's cerebral composure while keeping her down to earth. A spectacular series encore and affectionate, yet unromanticized, tribute to the traveling Big Top, this soft-boiled historical mystery features female investigators who provide positive representation for folks with disabilities (Pentecost has both a prosthetic eye and MS) and bisexual women (via Parker's frank, frequently amusing inner thoughts about her love life). VERDICT A recommended purchase, especially for libraries where the first book circulated well.--Lauren Kage
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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September 20, 2021
Set in the summer of 1946, Spotswood’s twisty follow-up to 2020’s Fortune Favors the Dead sends New York PIs Lillian Pentecost and Lillian’s assistant, Willowjean Parker, to a traveling circus performing in rural Stoppard, Va., where Ruby Donner, the tattooed lady, has been murdered. The case is a personal one for Parker, who not only worked in the same circus before landing a job with Pentecost but considers many of the performers as family. Parker credits Ruby with saving her life and vows to find her killer. As Pentecost struggles with multiple sclerosis, Parker is faced with numerous potential killers, including her old mentor, Valentin Kalishenko, a hard-drinking knife thrower, as well as with more than a few skeletons from Ruby’s shadowy past. Though the focus on period details and hard-boiled atmospherics isn’t quite as strong as in the previous book, Spotswood’s ability to subvert genre tropes with intriguing and distinctive characters (Parker is openly bisexual at a time when that was risky) make this whodunit a delightfully unusual read. Readers will look forward to Pentecost and Parker’s further adventures. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary.
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