Pentecost and Parker Mystery Series by Stephen Spotswood
Not new, but new to me is the Pentecost and Parker mystery series by Stephen Spotswood. Set in the 1940s, Willowjean “Will” Parker, a scrappy former circus performer, is the assistant to Lillian Pentecost a successful, if unconventional Brooklyn- based private detective.
In four novels, the duo takes on a wide variety of baddies including drug dealers, gangsters, a dogy spiritualist[E1] , an evasive serial killer, a stickup team, and several crooked law enforcement officials.
The snappy repartee is reminiscent of the best hardboiled detective novels but not as dark.