The Hidden City: A Charles Lenox Mystery

Finch’s elegant 12th historical mystery featuring British detective Charles Lenox (after An Extravagant Death) finds the investigator probing a cold case in 1879 London. While recovering from injuries sustained during a previous case in America, Charles receives a letter from his former housekeeper, Mrs. Huggins, claiming that someone has been attempting to break into her house. She’s particularly frightened because, seven years earlier, the house’s former tenant died under suspicious circumstances that have never been explained. Charles digs into the details of that case and learns it involved an apothecary who distributed a variety of opium-derived medicines. Meanwhile, the young daughter of Charles’s recently deceased cousin arrives from India, and he helps her and her Indian friend, Sari, adjust to life in London. Finch offers a delightful mélange of crisscrossing subplots rooted in contemporaneous issues including colonialism, women’s suffrage, and poverty, and ensures that each thread enhances rather than distracts from the main mystery. Charles, meanwhile, remains a winning protagonist: intelligent and kind but never dull. This long-running series still has gas in the tank. (Nov.)