This review by Donna Bird originally ran on Green Man Review.
Charles Finch, A Beautiful Blue Death
(St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2007)
Charles Finch, The September Society
(St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2008)
Charles Finch, The Fleet Street Murders
(St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2009)
St. Martin’s sent us the advance uncorrected proof for The Fleet Street Murders a few weeks ago. I realized as I was reading it that it was the third installment in a series, so we requested the first two books and received them in good time. That gives me the opportunity to review them all together, as they should be.
This is a highly entertaining, albeit somewhat light, murder mystery series, set in England (primarily London) in the 1860s. The lead character is Charles Lenox, younger son of an aristocratic family, who has become a very successful amateur detective. Already in his early forties at the time of the first novel in the series, he lives in a very nice townhouse in Hampden Lane, not far from St. James’s Park in Mayfair. Conveniently enough, he’s independently wealthy. When he’s not solving murder mysteries, he amuses himself by traveling to foreign lands and studying their history. He is a bit of an expert on Roman history, and has even written a monograph about daily life in the time of the emperor Hadrian. Unlike many literary sleuths, Lenox has no obvious bad habits or idiosyncrasies — he is about as squeaky clean and downright pleasant as you can imagine.
Like that other London-based amateur detective Sherlock Holmes (who, as you may recall, was awash with bad habits and idiosyncrasies), Lenox experiences a somewhat strained relationship with the Metropolitan Police, founded in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel (and that is why, according to Finch, British police are called bobbies). He has more difficulty with the senior man, Exeter, who tends to jump to conclusions before all the evidence is in, than he does with the junior man, whose name is Jenkins. In fact, his collaborations with Jenkins develop quite nicely over the course of the three novels.
Lenox enjoys the company of three other collaborators, as well. One of these is his faithful manservant Graham, who moves effortlessly between serving high tea and interviewing servants in the upper-class households where the crimes take place. Another is his next-door neighbor and beloved friend, Lady Jane Grey (a most unfortunate name given the historical antecedent), a widow who travels in very high social circles. She gathers intelligence from her many female friends and also provides Lenox with a sympathetic sounding board for his ideas. His third regular collaborator is Thomas McConnell, a medical doctor with a drinking problem — the only recurring character in the series with a bad habit. Thomas is married to Jane’s cousin Lady Victoria Phillips, otherwise known as Toto. Not surprisingly, McConnell gets to take on the tasks usually reserved for a medical examiner. He otherwise bears no resemblance whatsoever to the reliable John Watson.
While they are hardly insignificant, I would say the mysteries are the least important aspect of these novels. In their portrayal of daily life among the politically liberal urban upper classes during the middle Victorian period they rival Anthony Trollope’s Palliser novels. I really mean that! For example, in The Fleet Street Murders, Lenox runs for a seat in the House of Commons in Stirrington, a district quite far north of London. He has to ride the train back and forth to Stirrington. When he’s there, he stays at a public house and spends his time giving speeches, attending meetings, and making the acquaintance of the local leaders who can make or break his campaign. Finch provides a great deal of detail about these activities. The whole experience reminded me of the present-day by-election campaign portrayed in the marvelous British mini-series Party Animals.
Another noteworthy example is Finch’s detailed portrayal of the gentleman’s club scene in London. This begins in A Beautiful Blue Death, wherein Finch observes that his hero belongs to several of these and begins to describe them in terms of their location, purpose, and general cultural attributes, such as what kinds of people belong, what they are expected to do when at the club. Finch uses Lenox to explain to the reader that one of the reasons for this proliferation of clubs was the separation between men and women in terms of their daily activities. I would venture to say that another reason was that the men who populated these clubs had nothing better to do. Most of them were independently wealthy and thus did not have to work for a living.
The novels are relatively short, running just around three hundred pages each, with large type and lots of white space. Narration is in the third person, not my favorite approach for the mystery genre, but it works for these. I am honestly not sure that anything would be gained by presenting the world through Lenox’s eyes. I wouldn’t expect him to have a wry sense of humor, for example, or to wonder how his life might have been different if he and Graham changed statuses. Although Karl Marx lived in London during the time that these novels took place, I would not expect him to show up in any of them, nor would I expect Lenox to be aware of his writings.
Despite his obvious understanding of and appreciation for mid-Victorian British politics and culture, Charles Finch is an American, born in New York City. He holds a master’s degree in Renaissance English literature from Oxford University, which doesn’t exactly explain this series, either. Now there’s a mystery for you!
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