Minky Woodcock

In October 1926, Arthur Conan Doyle attempts to engage the agency to expose Harry Houdini, but Woodcock and son are absent on business in Florida. Doyle believes the escapologist and sceptic to be supernaturally gifted, using his abilities to act as a gatekeeper for the spiritual world. Minky is stunned that the creator of the logical Sherlock Holmes has such strong spiritual beliefs. He persuades her to attend a séance held by Margery of Boston; Minky isn't fooled by the medium's tricks and flees when Margaery attempts to molest her. She then runs into Harry Houdini's wife Bess in a speakeasy. After learning Minky is a detective and fearing a spiritualist threat to her husband's life, Bess hires Minky as Houdini's assistant.[12]

She joins the show for its North American tour, along with a nurse called Miss La Chatte. Houdini tells Minky of his feud with Doyle due to his regular debunking of spiritualists, and teaches her some of his feats, including the Chinese Water Torture Cell. Bess falls ill, and Harry makes a pass at Mink; she tells his wife but she is uses to his infidelities and merely cares he is kept safe. During one show Houdini's apparatus is sabotaged and he breaks his ankle. While recuperating he poses for drawings by a pair of McGill University students, and - after boasting of his ability to take blows to the stomach - is punched repeatedly by one J. Gordon Whitehead. He initially seems unharmed, though he later collapses during sex with Minky.[13]

Minky believes there is more to the attack than it seems, and stays behind to investigate Whitehead, with La Chatte filling in as assistant. Investigating Whitehead's lodgings, she finds the man is an avid spiritualist. Meanwhile, Houdini collapses once again; La Chatte administers an injection meant to fight his peritonitis but it instead kills him.[14] On the advice of her husband's agent, Bess refuses an autopsy. Minky is suspected of playing a role in his death but evades the police; she is cleared when the McGill students back Whitehead's story about the punches, and Houdini's death is officially recorded as an accident. Whitehead attempts to have Minky drowned in her bath, and when that fails he and co-conspirator La Chatte try to trap her in the Chinese Water Torture Cell. She escapes and overpowers them, and they admit to being part of the pro-spiritualist Crewe Circle. Minky takes her findings to Bess but Houdini's widow reveals that as she will receive double indemnity life insurance if her husband's death is kept as officially being an accident. Minky returns to the agency office moments after her father and brother arrive back, stunning them by showing the substantial fee she received for her work in their absence.[15]

At the tail end of 1943, Bennie has finally left the agency to become a dancer. Their father, grievously ill with cancer, stubbornly refuses to rename the agency despite being hospitalised. J. P. Morgan Jr. attempts to engage Minky's father to investigate Nikola Tesla's new death ray, but settles for hiring Minky herself. She is also engaged for the same reason by John Trump, who is working in the hospital where he father is being treated. After seeing in the New Year at a lavish party hosted by Josephine Baker, she meets Tesla in Bryant Park. The pair strike up a rapport and he takes her back to his hotel, where Tesla tells her of the war of the currents and his dispute with the Morgan family. The inventor introduces her to his pigeon Mirna, and tells her he believes his device will be a powerful deterrent that will prevent war; Tesla keeps the plans for the device in a secret location. Minky decides to investigate Morgan's brothers, OSS staff attached to Baker. Spotting their riverboat she fakes a rescue to get onboard and meets Baker and the Morgans. However, as soon as they are left alone with Minky the Morgans attempt to rape her, and she flees. She meets with Tesla again and drops him off, only for someone to try and run the scientist down.[16]

Minky is able to save him at the cost of her car. The police are unable to identify the driver and don't take Minky's claims of attempted murder seriously. After a meeting with Morgan Jr. she is seduced by one of his associates and is shocked to find he is a Nazi, and kills the man after they have sex. Minky experiences nightmares about her mother's death and narrowly escapes being killed by an electrified manhole cover. When visiting Tesla she finds he has died; the police suspect Minky is involved and imprison her.[17]

Trump bails Minky out, and she informs Baker of her beliefs that Tesla was being targeted by a Nazi conspiracy. The maid at Tesla's hotel gives her the body of Mirna to bury, and she meets up with a fortune teller named Rhonda who possesses the key to the scientist's safe deposit box. Minky narrowly avoids another attempted electrocution and the key has been stolen. Arriving late, she finds the box already open - having contained only birdseed and a framed picture of a pigeon. Later, going through her mother's things Minky finds a notebook full of case details showing she played a far greater role in Benedict's career than she previously knew. She meets up with Baker, whose OSS contacts have identified the car's driver as Otto Skorzeny. The pair track him to an old laboratory of Tesla's in Long Island; however they are jumped by the Nazi, who ties them up and attempts to electrocute them.[18]

After advice from Tesla, Minky has taken to wearing rubber shoes and is able to save them both from death. After they escape she realises the plans for the device are hidden with Mirna and recovers them. She visits Benedict at hospital, where he confesses her mother was the real detective, and that she drowned after discovering him having sex with a mistress. Baker is able to capture Skorzeny, clearing Minky of Tesla's murder. Her father dies soon afterwards, leaving her a note simply saying "Woodcock & Daughter". Minky makes flawed copies of the plans that she gives to both Morgan Jr. and Trump. She meets up with Baker, telling her she believed Tesla committed suicide by voluntarily stopping breathing to prevent his invention getting into the wrong hands. As Minky and Baker begin to make love they burn the real plans for the ray device.[19]