Penguin Random House, Belletristik, Murder Under Her Skin (Englisch, Stephen Spotswood, 2022)

A New York Times Book Review Editor&rsquo,s Choice &bull, Rex Stout meets Agatha Christie with a fresh twist in the new Pentecost and Parker Mystery, a delightfully hardboiled high-wire act starring two daring women sleuths dead set on justice as they set out to solve a murder at a traveling circus &ldquo,A delight.... It&rsquo,s a pleasure to watch [Pentecost and Parker] sifting through red herrings and peeling secrets back like layers of an onion.&rdquo, The New York Times Book Review Someone&rsquo,s put a blade in the back of the Amazing Tattooed Woman, and Willowjean &ldquo,Will&rdquo, Parker&rsquo,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&rsquo,s Traveling Circus and Sideshow home for five years, and Ruby Donner, the circus&rsquo,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&rsquo,t playing it straight, and that her murdered friend might have been hiding a lot of secrets beneath all that ink.