We Were Killers Once by Becky Masterman

Minotaur Books, 312 pages, $27.99

Brigid Quinn rides again! This is good news because Brigid is one of the most unusual private eyes in the biz. She’s ex-FBI. (Hold the applause; she was disgraced and banished to Arizona.) She’s the wife of an ex-priest, Carlo. (He looks for the good in people; she knows there’s evil out there.) Her niece, Gemma-Kate, is a bit of a psychopath, but a brilliant psychopath. (She may — or may not — have poisoned one of Brigid and Carlo’s lovable pugs.) Both Brigid and Carlo have almost been done in by murderers. (Can’t think of an aside. This is a — for the most part — mystery blog, so there are usually murders being discussed. PI-ing is a dangerous profession, fictionally speaking, and being married to such a person presents its own dangerous moments.)

Brigid is Carlo’s second wife. His beloved, we assume, first wife, Jane, died a few years back. The personal understory of “We Were Killers Once” is about Brigid coming to terms with Carlo’s relationship with Jane. Before Carlo, Brigid had never been married, so Carlo doesn’t face the same potential anguish. In fact, most of Carlo’s anguish seems to be philosophical. It’s a good thing he’s a professor of philosophy. His thoughts and conversation are measured. Brigid is a person of deed, not word. It’s a wonder they have found each other. It’s a wonder they are still together after a couple of years of marriage. Neither is a blushing bride or groom, so there’s perhaps less dramatic romance and a steadier kind of love. Their relationship is about to be tested from all sorts of angles because of an obsession and an old sin. 

For as long as she can remember, Brigid has been fascinated with the killers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. You might know them as the focal points of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.” They were found guilty and subsequently executed for the murders of the Clutter family. Becky Masterman’s hypothesis here is: What if Capote got it wrong? His story is mostly from Perry’s point of view. What if Dick Hickock had his own tale to tell? What if there were another person involved?

For a number of years, Brigid has been intrigued by the murders of another family, the Walkers, in Florida. Hickock and Smith were known to have been in the area of those murders, but they were discounted as suspects by lack of evidence tying them to the crime. What if that “other person” was willing to do whatever to prevent the discovery of his involvement and his knowledge of Hickock and Smith?  What if that man’s name is Jeremiah Beaufort and Brigid and Carlo cross his path?

Mixing real life facts, Capote’s book, and Masterman’s imagination results in an intriguing book. From the start, Masterman divides her book into Brigid’s first person narration and a third person viewpoint of Beaufort’s search to eradicate whatever information may exist to link him to any killings. Beaufort is seventy years old when he gets out of prison for other crimes, and he doesn’t waste any time trying to track down potential threats. 

In favor of Brigid and Carlo surviving their encounter is Beaufort’s naïveté and his egotism. Also on the plus side are Brigid’s tough mind and practical planning based on her years as an agent and borderline sociopathic personality. Gemma-Kate is an apple that doesn’t fall far from the Quinn tree, so she is another plus. Carlo has deep sense of the value of humanity and loving kindness, but they probably are not really pluses here. So that’s the team trying to fend off the clammy fingers of Death grabbing one or more of them.

I’m leaving huge swathes of the story still under wraps. For instance, how specifically do Brigid and Carlo wind up on Beaufort’s radar? That’s part of the circle-tightening Masterman does to carry the story along, and I’m not going to be the one to muck up the deal!

This is a good one.