Pentecost & Parker Mysteries #1 Fortune Favors the Dead

A wildly charming and fast-paced mystery written with all the panache of the classics, Fortune Favors the Dead introduces Pentecost and Parker, an audacious new detective duo for the ages.

It’s 1942 and Willowjean “Will” Parker is a scrappy circus runaway whose knife-throwing skills have just saved the life of New York’s best, and most unorthodox, private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. When Will is summoned by the dapper detective a few days later, she doesn’t expect to be offered a life-changing proposition: Lillian’s multiple sclerosis means she can’t keep up with her old case load alone, so she wants to hire Will as her right-hand woman. In return, Will is to receive a salary, room and board, and training in Lillian’s very particular art of investigation.

Three years later, Will and Lillian are called in on the case of Abigail Collins, bludgeoned to death with a crystal ball following a Halloween party at her home—her body found slumped in the same chair where her steel magnate husband shot himself the year before. With rumors flying that Abigail was bumped off by the vengeful spirit of her husband, the family has tasked the detectives with finding answers where the police have failed. But that’s easier said than done in a case involving messages from the dead, a seductive spiritualist, and Becca Collins, the beautiful daughter of the deceased—who quickly bewitches Will. When Will and Becca’s relationship dances beyond the professional, Will finds herself in dangerous territory, and discovers she may have become the murderer’s next target.

About the Author

STEPHEN SPOTSWOOD is an award-winning playwright, journalist, and educator. As a journalist, he has spent much of the last two decades writing about the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the struggles of wounded veterans. His dramatic work has been widely produced across the United States. He makes his home in Washington, DC, with his wife, young adult author Jessica Spotswood.

Author Residence: Washington, DC