Published November 10, 2015
Minotaur Press
A new Charles Lenox mystery is always a good excuse to clear one’s schedule and find a comfortable chair to inhabit. Lenox’s ninth outing, “Home By Nightfall” is up there with my favorites in the series.
We catch up with gentleman sleuth Lenox in the Autumn of 1876. The private detection agency he founded with two partners in the series’ previous title (“The Laws of Murder,” 2014) is finally finding its feet. Except for the fact that he is spending most of his time in the office instead of out on cases, and that his first-of-its-kind in England agency quickly spawned a less-than-scrupulous rival agency, Lenox is enjoying being (gasp!) “in trade.”
In the opening pages we learn London is abuzz with the disappearance of a visiting German pianist named Muller. It’s a baffling locked-room mystery and solving it would be a feather in the cap of his agency. It would also be a feather in his rival’s cap. But Lenox also has family to tend to – his brother, a recent widower is mourning alone at the family estate in Sussex.
And so we have Lenox splitting time between London and Markethouse, the village of his boyhood. It isn’t long before a nervous villager seeks his services on a curious break-in. That and a series of seemingly unrelated thefts in the quiet village quickly escalate into something more sinister.
Finch is an excellent writer who gets even better with every book. He brings the era and locales into focus with attention to the rich details of the day-to-day and an ever-growing cast of characters. Often when a novel has a secondary mystery I will find myself rushing through whichever I find less interesting to get back to the storyline I want; however, “Home By Nightfall” had me enjoying every page. Finch also provides just the right amount of backstory so a lack of familiarity with the previous books shouldn’t hinder readers’ enjoyment of this excellent cold-weather read.
Happy reading!
An advance galley of this book was kindly provided by the publisher with no expectations other than an honest opinion.
