An Old Betrayal - (Charles Lenox Mysteries) by Charles Finch (Paperback)

About the Book

"In the seventh book of Finch's ... series of Victorian mysteries, a case of mistaken identity has Charles Lenox playing for his highest stakes yet: the safety of Queen Victoria herself"--

Book Synopsis

In An Old Betrayal, the seventh book of Charles 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.

Review Quotes

"There are echoes of Holmes and Watson here, but Lenox is his own man: a humanist, even a kind of feminist, with a deep curiosity and compassion for others that belies his class." --The New Yorker on the Charles Lenox Mysteries

"[A] superior series. . . . With the compassion and cynicism of Anthony Trollope, the sharply drawn heroes and villains of Charles Dickens and his own deft hand at sleight of plot, Finch has again blessed readers with a strong historical mystery, brimming with character and period, and the perfect puzzle with which to while away a winter's evening." --Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Engaging...the combination of a simpatico lead and old-fashioned detection will appeal to golden age fans." --Publishers Weekly

"The upper-class amateur sleuth, an endangered species even in historical mysteries, is very much alive in Charles Finch's charming Victorian whodunits." --The New York Times Book Review

"Superb . . . Boasting one of Finch's tightest and trickiest plots, this installment further establishes Lenox as a worthy heir to the aristocratic mantle of Lord Peter Wimsey." --Publishers Weekly (starred) on A Death in the Small Hours

"The sixth in Finch's steadily improving series develops the congenial continuing characters further while providing quite a decent mystery." --Kirkus Reviews on A Death in the Small Hours

About the Author

Charles Finch is the USA Today bestselling author of the Charles Lenox mysteries, including The Vanishing Man. His first contemporary novel, The Last Enchantments, is also available from St. Martin's Press. Finch received the 2017 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle. His essays and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Washington Post, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles.