Book Review: Murder Crossed Her Mind by Stephen Spotswood
By Doreen Sheridan
January 4, 2024
Will Parker dearly loves being the assistant to New York City’s finest private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. Over the course of their association, she’s built up a formidable reputation for crime-fighting in her own right. So when she’s gulled and mugged while on Coney Island one day, her immediate reaction is to hide the experience from everyone she knows. Sure her assailants stole her identification and keys and, perhaps most worrisomely, the registered gun she was carrying on her that day. But she’ll be damned before she goes to the police or even to her boss about all this. No, Will is certain she can track down the criminals and get her property back all on her own.
Before she can properly devote her time and attention to this endeavor though, a new client shows up at the office. Forest Whitsun is a famed, perhaps even notorious, defense attorney who has previously and quite publicly, butted heads with Pentecost. Now, he wants to hire her to look into the disappearance of his elderly friend, a former colleague at the law firm where he first started out.
Vera Bodine was an invaluable part of Boekbinder and Gimbal for decades despite having no legal training herself. This was largely because of her extraordinary memory. The unassuming secretary helped her firm rake in millions more dollars than they might have collected otherwise, due to her unerring ability to recall the finest details during negotiations:
“Was she a trained mnemonist, or did this ability come naturally?” [Pentecost] asked.
“I’ve never heard that word out loud before, but I know what it means,” Whitsun said. “As far as I know, Vera never had any training. She didn’t use tricks. She said she was born with it. Noticed it when she was a little girl. Everything since she was about two years old is still up there.”
I tried to imagine it. Having every single thing that ever happened to me rattling around in my skull, even the bits I wanted to toss. Not to get dramatic, but it sounded like a little corner of hell.
“I can see how such an ability would be very useful,” Ms. P said admiringly.
While Will and her boss might differ substantially in their opinions on Vera’s abilities, they’re both eager to hear more about the missing woman. Whitsun is happy to provide. Since retiring from her position, Vera had become something of a shut-in, with Whitsun himself being one of her few visitors. During World War II, however, her abilities had come to the attention of the FBI, who had recruited her in their pursuit of Nazi spies operating on domestic soil. Whitsun worries that this last endeavor of hers has somehow landed her in trouble.
Despite the combative nature of her prior relationship with Whitsun, Pentecost readily takes on the case. Whitsun has clearly been running himself ragged since discovering that Vera has vanished: as a legal professional, he knows full well that time is of the essence when it comes to finding missing people. But Will soon discovers that she isn’t the only detective whose concentration is divided between recovering Vera and resolving troublesome personal matters. Jessup Quincannon, the murder-obsessed millionaire with a grudge against Pentecost, has uncovered something that Pentecost wants to keep buried deeply in her past. How far will she go in order to stop him from exposing her secrets?
As our detectives try to focus on their case despite the myriad distractions in their way, they’re further challenged by the inability of their ostensible allies to get along. Whitsun, for example, refuses to talk to the cops who must eventually get called in when hard proof of foul play is uncovered:
“They want to talk, they can get a warrant.”
“What do you have against cops?”
“Well, let me see. They beat confessions out of suspects, especially innocent ones. They slow-march my clients through booking. They falsify evidence. They lie on the stand.” Whitsun ticked off each item on his fingers. “Oh, and this is in addition to treating every defense attorney like scum.”
“You think playing hardball is going to make them like you any better?” I asked.
“I think if I showed up on their doorstep on my knees, ready to answer whatever they wanted to ask, at the end of the day, I’d still be scum,” Whitsun declared.
This modern take on the hardboiled detective novel of the post-World War II era does an excellent job of reminding modern readers that times were not, in fact, so different then than they are now, and if anything were arguably worse. Especially affecting were Will’s keen observations on the raid of the White Clover, one of the few bars where people who weren’t conventionally heterosexual were allowed to be themselves.
Murder Crossed Her Mind is packed with so much plot and color that I could even forgive its (admittedly well-telegraphed) cliffhanger ending. Even before I read Stephen Spotswood’s tantalizing afterword on the subject, I couldn’t wait to find out what lies in store for our dynamic duo of Pentecost & Parker in what is sure to be the next thrilling installment of their series.