Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and author Helena Dixon for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

This is another book that is deep into the series it comes from. Murder in New York is the 18th book in Helena Dixon’s Miss Underhay Mystery series. It stands well on its own, possibly because Dixon takes her heroine away from the usual setting of England to New York City. The territory here is fresh for Kitty Underhay as well as this reader.

After receiving a telegram that her father is gravely ill and begging her to come to New York, Kitty Underhay arrives by steamship with her husband, Matt. The setting is New York City in the 1930s. They arrive at her father’s apartment and find him quite well. It seems he had to lay low for a while and he told a concerned neighbor he was ill, which prompted her to send the telegram.

Kitty and Matt decide to embrace Christmas in New York, despite being summoned under false pretenses. They attend a fundraising party hosted by Nora Dangerfield, the neighbor who sent the telegram. The following morning, as they are making their way to Central Park for breakfast, they find Mrs. Dangerfield’s body in the snow outside the apartment building.

Although Edgar, her father, urges them to stay out of it, Kitty and Matt find themselves in the middle of the investigation. When Mrs. Dangerfield’s assistant is poisoned, the suspect list is long. There are numerous people who might have wanted either or both of them dead.

My parents grew up in New York City in the 1930s. The situation there was much more desperate than described in this book. The Depression is a background to the mystery and though Kitty and Matt mention poor areas of the City from time to time, they don’t appear to encounter the myriad of homeless that were living in camps, nor a plethora of panhandlers and the unemployed. I found this to be a bit disconnected from reality.

Other than that, however, I thoroughly enjoyed Murder in New York. The mystery kept me guessing. There were numerous possibilities that I vacillated between, thinking I had it figured out. I didn’t. The way Kitty and Matt move through society at the time is fun, if a bit disconnected. Edgar has a way of moving with the upper echelon despite the fact that he’s not really one of them.

There is a backstory to Kitty’s relationship with Edgar that I didn’t understand, although I had a general idea. This is about the only place I was a little lost, but there are enough details that I could follow it. I think taking Kitty and Matt out of their usual setting for this mystery helped in that regard. This is a fun cozy mystery that was an easy read and kept me guessing. I would like to go back and read the books in the series – it’s sold me on it.

Next book in the series: