1920s New York City. Yellow taxi cabs. Gangsters. Broadway. Prohibition. And Lady Eleanor Swift. What can possibly go wrong? In Murder in Manhattan by Verity Bright there are two murders and lots of suspects set in the twenty-four hour noise and bustle that is Manhattan. Following on directly from the action at the end of Death on Deck, Ellie, butler Clifford and her household staff are staying in a luxurious apartment; Detective Chief Inspector Hugh Seldon, Ellie’s new fiancé, has returned to England. New York is not quite what Ellie expected. There’s an irascible old lady who insults them in the lift, people seem to speak a different language and the food in the diners is greasy. But there are compensations; for example Marty, the welcoming doorman at their apartment block, and Iver Driver, the chatty cab driver. And, thanks to newspaper coverage of her trans-Atlantic investigations aboard the Celestiana, Eleanor has received invitations to lots of swanky parties.
When Marty is killed in a hit-and-run accident, Eleanor begins to investigate. Except no-one else is interested. The straight-talking New Yorkers shrug their shoulders and are bemused that a titled English lady should care about a dead man she hardly knew. Hard-nosed beat cop Officer Balowski tells her, ‘Forget the whole thing, lady. I know you don’t like it, but in this city, no one cares about one more dead doorman.’ Never one to take ‘no’ for an answer, Ellie’s team of two – herself and Clifford – go downstairs to the basement accommodation of Marty’s mother Mrs Morales and his brother Earl. There they make a discovery that suggests Marty may have had something to hide.
As in preceding novels – The French for Murder, Murder in an Irish Castle and Death on Deck – Ellie is away from home, far from her comfort zone with a background cast of familiar characters. Each of these books has a different tone and this one particularly has a dangerous edge. Eleanor doesn’t hesitate to defend the underdogs and doesn’t care a fig for what people think of her. But when she stands up to bullies, she meets her match. As the investigation progresses Ellie’s team expands in number until there is a second most unexpected murder. Yes I guessed the identity of the murderer but mostly on a hunch and an instinctive dislike rather than evidence. Bright as usual balances the mixture of murder investigation with mystery, tension, humour and food.
A fun read that made me pick up the book at every available moment. I do miss Hugh, though.

Read my review of other books in the Lady Eleanor Swift series:-
A VERY ENGLISH MURDER #1LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH AT THE DANCE #2LADYELEANORSWIFT
A WITNESS TO MURDER #3LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER IN THE SNOW #4LADYELEANORSWIFT
MYSTERY BY THE SEA #5LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER AT THE FAIR #6LADYELEANORSWIFT
A LESSON IN MURDER #7LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH ON A WINTER’S DAY #8LADYELEANORSWIFT
A ROYAL MURDER #9LADYELEANORSWIFT
THE FRENCH FOR MURDER #10LADYELEANORSWIFT 
DEATH DOWN THE AISLE #11LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER IN AN IRISH CASTLE #12LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH ON DECK #13LADYELEANORSWIFT

If you like this, try:-
‘Death and the Brewery Queen’ by Frances Brody #12KATESHACKLETON
‘The Seaside Murders’ by Helena Dixon #2SECRETDETECTIVEAGENCY
‘The Killing of Polly Carter’ by Robert Thorogood #2DEATHINPARADISE

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MURDER IN MANHATTAN by Verity Bright @BrightVerity https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8tg via SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:-