2025 mystery, fifth in its series. As cliffhangered at the end of book
4, Pentecost has been arrested for murder.
The craftsmanship often felt slack in that previous book, but
this was largely a return to form. Yes, all right, there is a possible
solution to the mystery which seemed to me very obvious, but which
nobody in the book thinks of until relatively late; but that's because
I knew this was a murder mystery, and therefore considered that
possible solution even though there was no apparent evidence of or
motivation for it.
If the police, whom Pentecost has often helped before, seem entirely
willing to lock her up… well, that's consistent with the way we've
seen them act in this series, not wanting to know they have been shown
up by an amateur even if she's careful to make sure they get the
credit.
If there's a flaw it's in the pacing; of course many of the initial
information-gathering expeditions will come up blank, but it felt to
me as though the level of tension was more or less flat through this
process. Here's a bit with Pentecost in the Women's House of Detention
(sadly historical), here's a bit with Parker talking to people,
repeat, repeat. Once things start to crack, there is a genuine and
effective escalation; it just seemed to me to take a while to get
started.
I did particularly like the way Parker, while having thorough trust in
her employer, can't help thinking that if Pentecost were going to
kill anybody it would have been this particular person. But by
necessity there's less of the double act than usual; then, in the
closing scenes, Parker indulges in what she doesn't seem to see as
blackmail, but I very much did. And given to whom she does it, I
wouldn't be surprised to see her as the next victim of a "random
killer", except of course that she's the series narrator.
I see no promises of a next book on my usual news sources, but there
was a two year gap after the previous one and this doesn't seem to
bring the series to a conclusion.