The Fleet Street Murders

This is a lovely Victorian mystery. Finch does an impressive job of weaving the story lines together. The prose is lucid and evocative of the era. The characters are both charming and very real. This book has it all: history, love, romance, politics, intrigue, mystery and murder.

Charles Finch & his Mr. Lenox have me hooked. "Beautiful Blue Death" was a delight, but "Fleet Street Murders" tops them all. My only disappointment was that the book came to an end & left me hungry for more. (I have the same reaction to chocolate, too.) Charles Finch has given detective Lenox more depth to his gentleman's nature. Lenox feels the grip of being torn by several worlds at one time with his election campaign demands, his love tensions & his desire to solve crime. Other characters such as Toto, Dallington, Dr. McConnell, Jenkins, Edmund & Lady Jane are becoming more complex as well. Even the minor characters have surprising roles to play. The prologue was so concise, that it merited numerous re-reads as the tale unfolded. In addition to plot, characters & suspense, the book also illuminates the history of the period with flavorful bits of information about architecture, government & travel. Like any good chocoholic, I am fiending for the next book. What a sweet treat, "The Fleet Street Murders", has been & I can hardly wait for the next book!!!

The third book in the Charles Lenox mystery series opens with Lenox celebrating a quiet Christmas at home with his family and new fiancée the night two well-known journalists are murdered. The morning papers bring news of the brutal killings, and Lenox, being the detective that he is, is soon working connections. Before he is able to become fully involved in the case, he is called away to Stirrington, a small town north of London. Following in both his father's and brother's footsteps, Lenox has decided to run for public office. Unfortunately, he was not expecting to be thrown into the campaign so soon and is torn between investigating the case and running for a seat in Parliament. Once in Stirrington, he keeps an eye on the case by telegram. Many things about it worry him --- the most of all being that he's not in London to investigate firsthand. To further complicate matters, he finds campaigning difficult and not at all what he expected. When a letter arrives from his fiancée, Lady Jane Grey, asking to postpone their wedding, he decides that a short trip back to London to speak with her in person is what he needs. Thankfully, this also allows him to put off campaigning and look in on the case. Although he doesn't find out much regarding the case, he manages to keep his young protégé, Dallington, busy answering plenty of questions and combing a few backstreets for information. The short respite in London provides Lenox with the opportunity for him and Jane to discuss her recent change of heart. After a long talk, they find themselves feeling better about their future. When Lenox once again decamps to Stirrington to campaign, his heart is in the right place even if his mind is still mulling over who would want to murder two journalists. Debates and campaign events begin to solidify Lenox's thoughts on running for office, and he finds he has more talent for it than he thought. After winning the debate and a few friends --- thanks to the purchasing of several pints of beer in the town --- he believes that he has a shot at winning and throws himself full force into campaigning. He also begins to understand why his brother, who holds his deceased father's seat in Parliament, is so interested in his being a Member. After the election is over, Lenox returns to London and throws himself back into the case. On the train ride home, Lenox has a revelation. He sets out to prove his unpopular theory, solve the murders --- and possibly bring closure to several unsolved cases he has been following for years. When a Scotland Yard Investigator is murdered, Lenox recognizes the time has come to reveal what he knows and is aware that proving a member of high society is a murderer will not be easy. THE FLEET STREET MURDERS is a quiet but entertaining mystery. A long cast of characters keeps you wondering where fingers will be pointed, who is capable of the murders, and why they would have gone to those lengths to begin with. Lenox is a likable if Sherlock Hol

I read A Beautiful Blue Death and The September Society (the two previous Charles Lenox mysteries) last year, and loved both. This third book didn't disappoint my expectations. There are actually two plotlines in the book - in one Lenox tracks down the murderers of a pair of journalists, and in the other he stands for Parliament in a remote English town he's never even been to (which is apparently pretty common). By the end I didn't know which story I cared about more, which is a good thing. As always with Finch the book is incredibly evocative of Victorian London - the streetlamps, the morning tea, the parties, the cobblestones. All good books are an escape but this series somehow feels even more escapist, because the world is vivid and well-drawn, and the characters moving within it seem so real. A must-read - I can't wait for the fourth.

Amateur sleuth (Now called private investigators) Charles Lennox is busy and torn in different directions. Two men in London of 1866 are killed minutes apart. Winston Caruthers, writer and editor of the conservative Daily Telegraph and Simon Pierce who worked for the liberal Daily News are the victims. Besides working for newspapers, the only other thing they had in common is each testified against Jonathan Poole, a traitor to England. Inspector Exeter believes Hiram Smith killed them, but he dies in his jail cell in what looks like a suicide. Exeter arrests Poole's son, but there are people close to the case who believe the inspector has the wrong man in custody again. They ask Charles to look into the matter, but he has no time to take on the complex homicides because he is running for Minster of Parliament from Stirrington. His opponent uses dirty tricks to win by a hundred votes so Charles turns back to the case and begins to put the puzzle pieces together until he believes he knows who the culprit is, but lacks proof. Trying to catch evidence against a diabolical killer puts Charles in harms way with the distinct potential of being the next investigation for Exeter to bungle. Charles Finch writes about the birth of Scotland Yard and how the police there change their methodology to meet their mandate. Amateur sleuths, the forerunners of private investigators, used whatever was available in mid nineteenth century London to solve cases. Charles is one of them, but works closely with Scotland Yard to bring down the shadowy puppeteer pulling everyone's strings. This is an entertaining Victorian mystery as the audience and Mr. Lennox try to solve who is behind the homicides and why. Fans will want to read Charles' previous investigations (see A BEAUTIFUL BLUE DEATH and SEPTEMBER SOCIETY). Harriet Klausner