The Fleet Street Murders (Charles Lenox Series #3) »

Charles Finch is a graduate of Yale and Oxford. His debut in the Charles Lenox series, A Beautiful Blue Death, was nominated for an Agatha Award and named one of Library Journal's Best Books of 2007. He lives in New York.

The third book in the Charles Lenox series finds the gentleman detective trying to balance a heated race for Parliament with the investigation of the mysterious simultaneous deaths of two veteran reporters.

It’s Christmas, 1866, and amateur sleuth Charles Lenox, recently engaged to his best friend, Lady Jane Grey, is happily celebrating the holiday in his Mayfair townhouse. Across London, however, two journalists have just met with violent deaths—one shot, one throttled. Lenox soon involves himself in the strange case, which proves only more complicated as he digs deeper. However, he must leave it behind to go north to Stirrington, where he is fulfilling a lifelong dream: running for a Parliamentary seat. Once there, he gets a further shock when Lady Jane sends him a letter whose contents might threaten their nuptials.

In London, the police apprehend two unlikely and unrelated murder suspects. From the start, Lenox has his doubts; the crimes, he is sure, are tied, but how? Racing back and forth between London and Stirrington, Lenox must negotiate the complexities of crime and politics, not to mention his imperiled engagement. As the case mounts, Lenox learns that the person behind the murders might be closer to him—and his beloved—than he knows.

Library Journal

It is Christmas 1866, and gentleman sleuth Charles Lenox (The September Society; A Beautiful Blue Death) is waging a political campaign for a seat in Parliament. Meanwhile, his fiancée, Lady Jane, wants to postpone their wedding, and then there is the matter of the murders of two journalists and an investigation run amok in the hands of Scotland Yard. VERDICT Unfortunately, the mystery gets buried beneath too many scenes covering Lenox's political aspirations and his interaction with his would-be constituents. However, fans who have fallen under the spell of Finch's storytelling skills will still enjoy this third Victorian series entry. Anne Perry readers may also want to discover Finch.