With unwavering humanity and light-footed humor, this intimate account of the interminable year of 2020 offers commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic, protests for racial justice, the U.S. presidential election, and more, all with a miraculous dose of groundedness in head-spinning times. From the award-winning book critic and best-selling author. "This book is so funny and so true. Charles Finch unpacks a year of plague, fear, shameless venality, and dizzying stupidity with an irrepressible wit and surgically precise cultural observations. I didn't know how badly I needed exactly this. Maybe you do too?"—Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped BoxIn March 2020, at the request of the Los Angeles Times, Charles Finch became a reluctant diarist: As California sheltered in place, he began to write daily notes about the odd ambient changes in his own life and in the lives around him. The result is What Just...

Called “absorbing” (Publishers Weekly) and “beguiling” (The New York Times Book Review), The Fleet Street Murders *finds gentleman detective Charles Lenox investigating the mysterious, simultaneous deaths of two veteran newspapermen, while engaged in a heated race for Parliament. *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, but must leave it behind to go north to Stirrington, where he is running for Parliament. Once there, he gets a further shock when Lady Jane sends him a letter whose contents may 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. But as the case mounts, Lenox learns that the person behind the murders may be closer to him—and his beloved—than he knows.** **

In what promises to be a breakout in Charles Finch's bestselling series, Charles Lenox travels to the New York and Newport of the dawning Gilded Age to investigate the death of a beautiful socialite.London, 1878. With faith in Scotland Yard shattered after a damning corruption investigation, Charles Lenox's detective agency is rapidly expanding. The gentleman sleuth has all the work he can handle, two children, and an intriguing new murder case. But when Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli offers him the opportunity to undertake a diplomatic mission for the Queen, Lenox welcomes the chance to satisfy an unfulfilled yearning: to travel to America. Arriving in New York, he begins to receive introductions into both its old Knickerbocker society and its new robber baron splendor. Then, a shock: the death of the season's most beautiful debutante, who appears to have thrown herself from a cliff. Or was it a suicide? Lenox's reputation has preceded him to the States, and...

From the critically acclaimed and USA Today bestselling author Charles Finch comes The Vanishing Man, a prequel to his Charles Lenox Victorian series, in which the theft of an antique painting sends Detective Lenox on a hunt for a criminal mastermind.London, 1853: Having earned some renown by solving a case that baffled Scotland Yard, young Charles Lenox is called upon by the Duke of Dorset, one of England's most revered noblemen, for help. A painting of the Duke's great-grandfather has been stolen from his private study. But the Duke's concern is not for his ancestor's portrait; hiding in plain sight nearby is another painting of infinitely more value, one that holds the key to one of the country's most famous and best-kept secrets.Dorset believes the thieves took the wrong painting and may return when they realize their error—and when his fears result in murder, Lenox must act quickly to unravel the mystery...

From the acclaimed author of the Charles Lenox series of mysteries, including the Agatha-nominated novel A Beautiful Blue Death, comes a riveting short story of death and detection on the East End. It’s the end of winter 1865 when Lenox agrees to investigate the death of Phil Jigg, a beloved neighborhood regular, found strangled on Great St. Andrews Street.  In a case that takes him through the noisy vendors and pickpockets, the rough-and-tumble back alleys and local pubs of the Seven Dials, Lenox looks for answers in a place that couldn’t feel more foreign from his West End home—and where his presence is anything but welcome.  The answer comes in the person of someone so ruthless and brutal that those who could help Lenox are terrified into silence. A whodunit filled with the kind of brooding atmosphere that led Library Journal to remark, “Readers of Anne Perry should be snatching up Finch’s books and clamoring for more” (starred review of A Stranger in Mayfair), this is a delightfully vivid addition to the Charles Lenox series.

On any given day in London, all Charles Lenox, Victorian gentleman and armchair explorer, wants to do is relax in his private study with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. But when his lifelong friend Lady Jane asks for his help, Lenox cannot resist another chance to unravel a mystery, even if it means trudging through the snow to her townhouse next door.One of Jane’s former servants, Prudence Smith, is dead – an apparent suicide. But Lenox suspects something far more sinister: murder, by a rare and deadly poison. The house where the girl worked is full of suspects, and though Prudence dabbled with the hearts of more than a few men, Lenox is baffled by an elusive lack of motive in the girl’s death.When another body turns up during the London season’s most fashionable ball, Lenox must untangle a web of loyalties and animosities. Was it jealousy that killed Prudence? Or was it something else entirely, something that Lenox alone can uncover before the killer strikes again – disturbingly close to home?From Publishers WeeklySet in England in 1865, Finch's impressive debut introduces an appealing gentleman sleuth, Charles Lenox. When Lady Jane Grey's former servant, Prue Smith, dies in an apparent suicide-by-poisoning, Lady Jane asks Lenox, her closest friend, to investigate. The attractive young maid had been working in the London house of George Barnard, the current director of the Royal Mint. Lenox quickly determines that Smith's death was a homicide, but both Barnard and Scotland Yard resist that conclusion, forcing him to work discreetly. Aided by his Bunter-like butler and friend, Graham, the detective soon identifies a main suspect, only to have that theory shattered by that man's murder. Finch laces his writing with some Wodehousian touches and devises a solution intricate enough to fool most readers. Lovers of quality historical whodunits will hope this is the first in a series.* (June) * Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review“Vividly capturing the essence of Victorian England, Finch presents us with a unique sleuth who combines the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes with the people skills of Thomas Pitt. A sparkling achievement.” —Library Journal (starred review) “A fine specimen of the genre…. Particularly good is [Finch’s] delineation of Lenox’s cozy-but-proper relationship with Lady Jane.” —The Washington Post"Finch's impressive debut introduces an appealing gentleman sleuth ... Finch laces his writing with some Wodehousian touches and devises a solution intricate enough to fool most readers." — Publishers Weekly“The best sort of historical mystery—clever, charming, full of period detail, and a delight to read.” —David Liss, author of The Whiskey Rebels

From the critically acclaimed author of A Beautiful Blue Death and A Burial at Sea comes an intriguing new mystery in what The New York Times calls "a beguiling series" Charles Lenox is at the pinnacle of his political career and is a delighted new father. His days of regularly investigating the crimes of Victorian London now some years behind him, he plans a trip to his uncle's estate, Somerset, in the expectation of a few calm weeks to write an important speech. When he arrives in the quiet village of Plumley, however, what greets him is a series of strange vandalisms upon the local shops: broken windows, minor thefts, threatening scrawls. Only when a far more serious crime is committed does he begin to understand the great stakes of those events, and the complex and sinister mind that is wreaking fear and suspicion in Plumley.  Now, with his protege, John Dallington, at his side, the race is on for Lenox to find the culprit before he strikes again.  And this time his victim may be someone that Lenox loves.**

Against the vividly drawn backdrop of Victorian London, amateur sleuth Charles Lenox must unlock a mystery concealed in the architecture of the city itself, in this new novel from acclaimed author Charles Finch. It's 1879, and Lenox is convalescing from the violent events of his last investigation. But a desperate letter from an old servant forces him to pick up the trail of a cold case: the murder of an apothecary seven years before, whose only clue is an odd emblem carved into the doorway of the building where the man was killed. When Lenox finds a similar mark at the site of another murder, he begins to piece together a hidden pattern which leads him into the corridors of Parliament, the slums of East London, and ultimately the very heart of the British upper class. At the same time, Lenox must contend with the complexities of his personal life: a surprising tension with his steadfast wife, Lady Jane, over her public support of the early movement for women's suffrage; the arrival of Angela Lenox, a mysterious young cousin from India, with an unexpected companion; the dizzying ascent of his brother, Sir Edmund Lenox, to one of the highest political posts in the land; the growing family of his young partners in detection, Polly and Dallington; and the return of the problems that have long bedeviled one of his closest friends, the dashing Scottish physician Thomas McConnell. Featuring a beloved cast of characters, a top-notch puzzle, and Finch's trademark humor and richness of historical detail, The Hidden City is a novel by a master at the top of his form

From bestselling author Charles Finch comes the third and final in a prequel trilogy to his lauded Charles Lenox series.London, 1855. A young and eager Charles Lenox faces his toughest case yet: a murder without a single clue. Slumped in a third-class car at Paddington Station is the body of a handsome young gentleman. He has no luggage, empty pockets, and no sign of identification on his person. And putting together the clues to the mystery of the man's identity only raises more questions, when Lenox discovers that the crime has a significant connection to America.As he seeks to solve this impossible case, the young Lenox must confront an equally troublesome problem in his personal life. Kitty Ashbrook, beautiful and cultured, appears to be his soulmate—but love comes with obstacles of its own. In tandem, this fiendish early case and passionate, deeply felt affair will irrevocably shape the brilliant detective and thoughtful gentleman Lenox is...

The sitting room looked as familiar as the back of his hand, and immediately Lenox took a liking to the young man who inhabited it. He saw several small artifacts of the missing student’s life---a frayed piece of string about two feet long of the sort you might bind a package with, half of a pulpy fried tomato, which was too far from the breakfast table to have been dropped, a fountain pen, and lastly, a card which said on the front The September Society. . . .In the small hours of the morning one fall day in 1866, a frantic widow visits detective Charles Lenox. Lady Annabelle’s problem is simple: her beloved son, George, has vanished from his room at Oxford. When Lenox visits his alma mater to investigate, he discovers a series of bizarre clues, including a murdered cat and a card cryptically referring to the September Society. Then, just as Lenox realizes that the case may be deeper than it appears, a student dies, the victim of foul play. What could the September Society have to do with it? What specter, returned from the past, is haunting gentle Oxford? Lenox, with the support of his devoted friends in London’s upper crust, must race to discover the truth before it comes searching for him, and dangerously close to home.

*In this enthralling mystery, detective Charles Lenox tries to resist the lure of a case and focus on his new career in Parliament. * Returning from a continental honeymoon with his new wife, Lady Jane, Lenox is asked by a colleague in Parliament to consult in the murder of a footman, bludgeoned to death with a brick. His investigation uncovers some unsettling facts about the family he served and a strange, second identity that the footman himself cultivated. Going into the boxing clubs and public houses, the Mayfair mansions and servants’ quarters of Victorian London, Lenox gradually realizes that an old friend may be implicated in the footman’s death. Soon a suspect is arrested, but Lenox has his doubts. Desperately trying to balance the opening of Parliament and what he feels sure is a dark secret surrounding the murder, he soon discovers that the killer is someone seemingly beyond suspicion, and may be prepared to spill blood again—even a detective’s.

Charles Lenox, Member of Parliament, sets sail on a clandestine mission for the government.  When an officer is savagely murdered, however, Lenox is drawn toward his old profession, determined to capture another killer. 1873 is a perilous time in the relationship between France and England.  When a string of English spies is found dead on French soil, the threat of all-out war prompts government officials to ask Charles Lenox to visit the newly-dug Suez Canal on a secret mission. Once he is on board the Lucy, however, Lenox finds himself using not his new skills of diplomacy but his old ones: the ship’s second lieutenant is found dead on the voyage’s first night, his body cruelly abused. The ship’s captain begs the temporarily retired detective to join in the hunt for a criminal.  Lenox finds the trail, but in the claustrophobic atmosphere on board, where nobody can come or go and everyone is a suspect, he has to race against the next crime—and also hope he won’t be the victim. At once a compulsive murder mystery, a spy story, and an intimate and joyful journey with the Victorian navy, this book shows that no matter how far Lenox strays from his old life, it will always come back to find him. “Agatha Christie meets Patrick O’Brian in Finch’s accomplished fifth whodunit set in Victorian England (after 2010’s A Stranger in Mayfair), the best in the series to date.” —Starred Review, Publisher’s Weekly 9/12/2011

**In the seventh book of Finch’s bestselling series of Victorian mysteries, a case of mistaken identity has Charles Lenox playing for his highest stakes yet: the safety of Queen Victoria herself. **On a spring morning in London, 1875, Charles Lenox agrees to take time away from his busy schedule as a Member of Parliament to meet an old protégé’s client at Charing Cross. But when their cryptic encounter seems to lead, days later, to the murder of an innocuous country squire, this fast favor draws Lenox inexorably back into his old profession. Soon he realizes that, far from concluding the murderer’s business, this body is only the first step in a cruel plan, many years in the plotting. Where will he strike next? The answer, Lenox learns with slowly dawning horror, may be at the very heart of England’s monarchy. Ranging from the slums of London to the city’s corridors of power, the newest Charles Lenox novel bears all of this series’ customary wit, charm, and trickery—a compulsive escape to a different time.

From Publishers WeeklyThe near simultaneous murders on Christmas night of two giants of Fleet Street—_Daily Telegraph_ writer Winston Carruthers and Daily News editor Simon Pierce—rock 1866 London in Finch's absorbing third historical (after 2008's The September Society). These sensational crimes disturb holiday festivities at the Mayfair home of amateur detective Charles Lenox, who jumps at the chance to further his crime-solving career. In the meantime, Lenox's restless fiancée, Lady Jane Grey, may delay their impending nuptials while Lenox is also off running for Parliament in distant Stirrington, where he learns the seamy underside of British politics. The multifaceted case includes a coded letter, wartime espionage, a gang slaying, bribery and eavesdropping, making it all fearfully complicated in the words of Inspector Jenkins of Scotland Yard. An exciting boat chase on the Thames leads to a slightly incongruous happy ending. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review“A beguiling Victorian mystery [with] an amiable gentleman sleuth cut from the same fine English broadcloth as Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review“Deftly plotted and richly detailed, The Fleet Street Murders is a taut Victorian thriller delivered from the pen of a master.” —Deanna Raybourn, author of Silent on the Moor“Somewhere in detective heaven, Sherlock Holmes and Lord Peter Wimsey are already preparing a glass of hot whiskey for Mr. Charles Lenox. This suave and flinty sleuth has a gorgeously dangerous future ahead of him, and so do lovers of Victorian mysteries.” —Louis Bayard, author of The Black Tower“This third entry in Finch’s series shows the author at his confident best, with a well-conceived story [and] an honorable and amiable hero.” —_Richmond__ Times-Dispatch_“A charming and intelligent mystery series. . . . Finch effortlessly evokes a tone fitting the Victorian times, and that is a large part of his novel’s charm.” —_The Oregonian_

Charles Lenox is at the pinnacle of his political career and is a delighted new father. His days of regularly investigating the crimes of Victorian London now some years behind him, he plans a trip to his uncle's estate in Somerset, with the expectation of a few calm weeks to write an important speech. When he arrives in the quiet village of Plumley, however, what greets him is a series of strange vandalisms upon the local shops: broken windows, minor thefts, threatening scrawls. Only when a far more serious crime is committed does he begin to understand the great stakes of those events, and the complex and sinister mind that is wreaking fear and suspicion in Plumley. Now, with his protege, John Dallington, at his side, the race is on for Lenox to find the culprit before he strikes again. And this time his victim may be someone that Lenox loves…