A detective novel set in New York in 1946 with two female private investigators, a locked door mystery and a dead society widow: what’s not to love in the new Stephen Spotswood mystery Fortune Favours the Dead?!
This recommendation came from a list of underrated novels that came out in 2020 from the LitHub website. Lit Hub is a great website to explore new and recommended fiction and non-fiction alike. While this is a debut novel for Spotswood he is an award-winning playwright, journalist and educator. He lives in Washington with his wife, the young adult author Jessica Spotswood. He has spent the last two decades as a journalist writing about the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the struggles of wounded veterans.
In Fortune Favours the Dead, Spotswood has created a new series that looks set to be a must-read for all mystery lovers. There is a bit of Agatha Christie, some Nero Wolfe and a dash of noir for the pulp fiction fans — so a bit of everything that melds seamlessly through the voice of Will Parker, the snappy assistant to the private investigator Lillian Pentecost. The matriarch of the rich Collins family is bashed to death by a crystal ball in a locked room during a family business party. There are lots of suspects — handily listed at the start of the book so you can keep track — many twists and surprises to keep you thinking, and the slow reveal of the backgrounds of the main characters builds an engaging relationship between the reader and Will and Ms Pentecost.
"A detective novel set in New York in 1946 with two female private investigators, a locked door mystery and a dead society widow: what’s not to love?"
- Jane Cowell
Lillian Pentecost has MS which is worsening and she finds an assistant in the unconventional Willowjean Parker, whose path to lady detective includes a stint in the circus. Enter stage left the Collins family's consulting psychic Ariel Belestrade whose practices are so questionable she’s being investigated by Professor Olivia Waterhouse. And let’s not forget the Collins family themselves — dogged by tragedy when their father shot himself the year before and now their mother is brutally murdered.
Rich and compelling, this book explores what it means to be queer in 1945 America, brings the working intelligent women to the fore in an otherwise straight washed male-dominated genre. It will grab you from the beginning pages and keep you guessing and entertained to the end.
I cannot wait for the next in the series, Murder Under Her Skin, due out in December.