Death at the Dance * Verity Bright * Lady Eleanor Swift #2

When an aristocratic amateur detective arrives at a lavish 1920s masked ball, she is horrified to find her new beau holding a bloody weapon over a dead guest—forcing her to scour the elite high-society sandbox to prove his innocence.

The Story: Set in the roaring, high-energy landscape of 1920 England, this fast-paced historical mystery functions as an exceptionally charming crime workspace. Lady Eleanor Swift is a well-traveled adventurer trying to adapt to her low-friction routine as the new lady of Henley Hall. She drops her usual guard to attend a magnificent masked ball hosted by her dashing new suitor, Lancelot "Lance" Langham. However, the festive sandbox permanently fractures when Eleanor follows a familiar figure up a grand staircase and opens the door to a terrifying scene: Lance standing over the body of a brutally beaten guest, holding a heavy silver candlestick next to an empty, looted wall safe. Arrested on the spot for murder and a string of local high-society diamond thefts, Lance faces a lethal legal tracking line. Convinced he was framed, Eleanor launches a synchronized counter-campaign. Backed by her sharp diagnostic toolkit, her clever butler, and her snuffling bulldog sidekick, Gladstone, she pushes past a defensive shield of elite secrets. Moving step-by-step through a dark ledger of fast-driving, heavy-drinking high-society suspects, she must map out the real killer's parameters before Lance hits a permanent hanging deadline.

Perfect For: Devotees of traditional, lighthearted historical cozy puzzles, fans of Downton Abbey aesthetics and Roaring Twenties culture, animal lovers who enjoy a bulldog sidekick, and readers who devour works by Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey, or Verity Bright's extensive Lady Eleanor Swift library.