Get this, mug! New potboiler set in 1930s Brooklyn
At first glance, John Manbeck’s new crime novella, “Death on the Rise,” available on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com, reads like a typical Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett hard-boiled detective novel of the 1930s.
The characters refer to detectives as “gumshoes,” corpses as “stiffs” and coffee as “java,” and call each other names like “sister” and “wise guy.”
However, if one reads a little further, one realizes that “Death on the Rise” may be the first “potboiler” to be set in Brooklyn Heights and Downtown Brooklyn. This makes sense, considering the fact that Manbeck is a former Brooklyn borough historian and lives in the Heights.