Just months after resigning from Parliament, Charles Lenox is happy to be returning to detecting and is anticipating opening a new agency with three partners in the spring of 1876. But his happiness is short-lived: first the agency gets bad press, including disparaging comments about Lenox himself from Scotland Yard officials; then Inspector Thomas Jenkins is murdered. Jenkins, Lenox's friend and colleague at the Yard, is shot in front of the house of the Marques of Wakefield, a man Lenox considers evil and who is the prime suspect until his body is found in a shipping trunk. So Lenox, commissioned by the Yard to assist, works to solve two murders while at the same time trying to keep up his financial end of the now-floundering agency and wondering if he still has the skills for the game. Finch is as skillful at evoking Victorian London as he is at spinning a crackerjack plot, this one with tentacles into the underworld of the upper class. Lenox's eighth outing, after An Old Betrayal (2013), is a solid addition to this much-lauded series.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2014 Booklist

Book eight in Finch's series featuring Charles Lennox (after An Old Betrayal) finds the Victorian gentleman-turned-detective and his associates-Lord John Dallington, Polly Strickland Buchanan, and the French detective LeMaire-the target of slanderous attack by a powerful rival detective agency taking scurrilous steps to wipe them out, including publishing false criticisms of Lennox by Scotland Yard detective Jenkins, a man thought to be his friend. Still, when Jenkins is murdered, Lennox is quick to investigate, ignoring the deadly threats against him. Reader Langton's crisp, well-born delivery matches the charm and pervading upper-class Victorian gentility of Finch's text perfectly. His skillful verbal portrait of Lennox presents an open-minded gent whose self-confidence begins to falter when his new business gets off to a rocky start, though he reasserts himself once he is on the hunt for a vicious murderer. His pal and protégé, John Dallington, speaks with a voice that's a bit dithery but good-natured. Polly is as precise and clear-spoken as she is dedicated. LeMaire sounds more French than François Hollande. And there is a long list of vocally well-developed characters, from Lennox's frozen-tongued manservant to a curiously antagonistic mother superior at a convent of cloistered nuns. A Minotaur hardcover. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A Victorian private investigator teams up with Scotland Yard to solve a case that involves one of their own. Charles Lenox has given up his seat in Parliament to return to his first love: solving crimes. He's entered into an agreement to run a new detective agency with his protg, Lord John Dallington; well-born widow Polly Buchanan, who's already been associated with a successful agency; and the Frenchman LeMaire. Their new enterprise has been greeted by some surprising newspaper criticism they attribute to Lenox's friend Inspector Jenkins. Lenox in particular is getting no clients. Despite the cold shoulder from Scotland Yard, Lenox immediately agrees to help when Inspector Nicholson calls to tell him that Jenkins has been murdered. The inspector was found shot in front of a house just a few doors from the home of the Marquess of Wakefield, a man Lenox is sure is guilty of a number of crimes. Now Wakefield has vanished. The detectives think he's on the run until they find his body, poisoned with lead added to some expensive port and hidden in a salt-filled trunk in the hold of a ship about to sail for India. The label on the shipping crate carries the name of a man they cannot find despite every effort. Unhappy with the partnership, LeMaire leaves, and Polly's tempted by a lucrative offer to run her own agency. With the loyal Dallington at his side, Lenox continues to explore every avenue. And, once Wakefield is taken out of the running as the criminal mastermind, Lenox must discover who is running the show while trying to save his failing agency. Finch's clever hero (An Old Betrayal, 2013, etc.) overcomes despair and calumny to solve one of his author's thorniest puzzles. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.