Dead in the Frame: A Pentecost and Parker Mystery

A New York Times Best Mystery of 2025 - ＂I adore Spotswood’s series. . . Start here, then work your way through the earlier books.＂ -Sarah Weinman, The New York Times

Wealthy financier and connoisseur of crime, Jessup Quincannon, is dead, and famed detective Lillian Pentecost is under arrest for his murder. Willowjean ＂Will＂ Parker knows for a fact her boss is innocent. She just doesn’t know if she can prove it. With Lillian locked away in New York’s infamous women’s prison, the House of D, Will is left to root out the real killer. Was it a member of Quincannon’s murder-obsessed Black Museum Club? His jilted lover? Or the mob hit-man who disappeared just after the shots were fired?

With the city barreling toward the trial of the century, Will is desperate to get her boss out from behind bars before her reputation is destroyed. Because the House of D is no kind place, especially for a woman with multiple sclerosis. Or one with so many enemies. Lillian needs to survive long enough to take the stand. With time running out on both sides of the prison walls, Will and Lillian must wager everything to uncover who put their thumb on the scales and a bullet in Quincannon’s head. Before Lady Justice brings her sword down, ending Pentecost and Parker’s adventures once and for all.

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, and he is the winner of the 2021 Nero Award for best American mystery. He makes his home in Washington, DC with his wife, young adult author Jessica Spotswood.