4 Gripping New Detective Novels

By Stephen Spotswood

A new Pentecost and Parker novel has arrived! A frabjous day in the world of crime fiction. Spotswood’s fifth installment in this beloved series, DEAD IN THE FRAME (Doubleday, 358 pp., $28), is particularly memorable. The great detective Lillian Pentecost has been arrested for the murder of the repulsive, crime-addicted philanthropist Jessup Quincannon, whose “eyes gleamed when he landed on the topic of murder” and “whose voice quivered with pleasure as he ran his fingers over a cutthroat razor that had been used to leave a woman bleeding out in the gutter.”

The case against Lillian seems airtight: She had a motive (Quincannon had threatened to spill some of her secrets), she was at his house when he was killed and ballistics has matched her gun to the bullet that killed him.

But Lillian’s right-hand woman, Will Parker, isn’t having it. Arriving home from a hard-earned vacation, she understands immediately that her boss has been set up. Will knows Lillian isn’t a murderer, and she investigates harder, and with greater purpose, than she ever has before.

I’ve always loved this series’ characters, snappy sentences and 1940s setting. “Dead in the Frame” marks a clear evolution in Spotswood’s plotting, including a bravura twist on the somewhat tired trope of a detective assembling all the suspects in one place. What’s more, the ending seamlessly sets up a sixth installment.

By John Shannon

It’s been 11 years since readers last met up with the private detective Jack Liffey, who starred in 14 books going back almost three decades. BOYSTOWN (Unnamed Press, 266 pp., $28) finds Jack worse for wear, recovering from open-heart surgery and a stroke, struggling to form complete sentences and at odds with his partner Gloria, who’s recovering from her own traumatic events.

But then Jack’s daughter, Maeve, an art student at U.C.L.A., lures him back in the field to help look into the disappearance of her girlfriend’s younger brother, Benjy. It seems like Benjy’s case could be somehow tied to West Hollywood’s gay community until a link emerges to an ongoing turf war between Ukrainian and Russian expats. Liffey can’t avoid another bout of violence, and this time, he might not survive it.

The plot is too convoluted in places, but I was OK with that since Jack and Maeve are such good company. “Boystown” is not the place to start this series — find a copy of “Concrete River” and go from there — but I was glad to spend time with Jack and to revisit the whole series.

By Charlotte Carter

The reissue of Carter’s series starring Nanette Hayes — a jazz musician with a talent for solving murders — was one of the most welcome developments in crime fiction back in 2021. So I began reading BEAUTY IN THE BLOOD (Vintage, 275 pp., paperback, $18) with excitement, expecting her signature mix of indelible Black heroines and vintage New York City settings.

Carter delivers, though the book is markedly different from her earlier novels. Yes, there’s a mystery to solve, namely, how a handsome visitor went out the window of a Midtown hotel, and what the lawyer Sarah Toomey, plagued by inexplicable memory gaps and embroiled in an affair with her married co-worker, had to do with it. But Carter is after larger narrative game here, linking the violent death to America’s original sin of slavery, and a generations-spanning curse dooming women to act out the worst kind of revenge fantasies.

The result is a fusion of detective fiction and horror that is impossible to look away from. Righteous fury infuses this novel on every page, as it must.

By Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare

When Bexley Simon and Samantha Farmer, the stars of BIG NAME FAN (Kensington, 306 pp., $28), first meet during a chemistry read for the detective show “Craven’s Daughter” (think “Cagney & Lacey,” fully coded queer), the sparks are so palpable that a colleague jokes they “set a small fire.” “Craven’s Daughter” becomes a cult hit, although — to the disappointment of its fans — Bex and Sam’s characters never get together romantically.

Five years after the show’s finale, Bex and Sam reunite for a podcast, where they begin to look into the mysterious death of their friend Jen Arnot, the makeup artist on “Craven’s Daughter.” Suddenly there’s a blurred line between fiction and reality as they take up detective work IRL to prove Jen was murdered.

Knox and Mare are seasoned romance writers, together and separately, and the rom-com elements of “Big Name Fan” work better than the mystery ones. Since it looks like Bex and Sam will return — and it was great fun to watch them work through yearslong conflicts — I hope their investigative skills, and the authors’, will improve over time.