Charles Finch Books in Order

While recovering from a previous case in 1879, Charles Lenox is drawn into a cold investigation when an old servant writes about a man trying to force his way into her lodgings. A strange emblem carved on that doorway appears at other crime scenes, leading Lenox from slum streets to the highest levels of London society.

Drawing on the diary he kept in 2020, Charles Finch looks back at the first year of the COVID 19 pandemic. In short, candid entries he records fear, boredom, political anger, small jokes, and the odd comforts that helped him and his friends get through a disorienting time.

Disillusioned with Scotland Yard after a corruption scandal, Charles Lenox accepts a diplomatic trip to the United States in 1878. Among New York salons and Newport mansions, he is asked to examine a debutante's apparent suicide and must decide whether high society is hiding a calculated murder.

In 1855, an unidentified gentleman is found dead in a third class railway carriage at Paddington Station, with no luggage, papers, or clear motive for murder. As Charles Lenox reconstructs the man's life and its links to America, he also faces a painful choice in his first serious romance.

London, 1853: the Duke of Dorset asks rising detective Charles Lenox to investigate the theft of a seemingly minor family portrait. Lenox suspects the real target is another hidden canvas tied to a closely guarded state secret, and must navigate ducal pride and murder to prove it.

In 1850, a very young Charles Lenox is desperate for a first case when an anonymous letter boasts of a perfect, unpunished murder. The discovery of a woman's body in a trunk on the Thames draws him into a chilling contest with a killer who fully intends to strike again.

On a snowy day at Charing Cross Station, an army lieutenant steps into a cloakroom to retrieve his hat and simply disappears, leaving only a spray of blood and scattered belongings. Charles Lenox has hours, not days, to discover what happened if he hopes to be home for Christmas dinner.

A childhood friend from Harrow writes to Charles Lenox in distress, then vanishes before they can meet. As Lenox traces the man's connection to a mysterious lifelong benefactor and a sudden new fortune, he uncovers threatened scientific reputations, East End gang violence, and a secret someone will kill to protect.

Grieving a family loss, Charles Lenox returns to his childhood home in Sussex, intending only to comfort his brother and rest from London. Peculiar village thefts and a disturbing break in soon suggest a darker pattern, while a famous pianist's disappearance keeps his new detective agency busy in the city.

After leaving Parliament to reopen his detective career, Charles Lenox helps found London's first professional enquiry agency, only to watch clients pass him by. When a friend at Scotland Yard is gunned down, Lenox's struggle to prove himself turns into a dangerous hunt through fashionable and criminal London alike.

After a bruising political campaign and breakup, young American Will Baker heads to Oxford for a year of graduate study, expecting quiet work and escape. Instead he is pulled into intense friendships, divided loyalties, and a love affair that forces him to decide what kind of life he wants next.

Agreeing to meet a mysterious client at Charing Cross as a favor to a protégé, Charles Lenox instead stumbles into a baffling murder. The trail leads from shabby lodging houses to royal corridors, revealing an old grievance and a plot that may reach Queen Victoria herself.

At the peak of his political career, Charles Lenox retreats to his uncle's Somerset estate to prepare an important speech. A rash of strange vandalism in the nearby village, followed by the murder of a constable, pulls him into a subtle case that threatens those closest to him.

When Phil Jigg, a well liked regular in London's East End, is found strangled on a grim side street, Charles Lenox agrees to investigate. Crossing from his comfortable West End into the markets and pubs of Seven Dials, he meets a fearful community and a killer who rules by intimidation.

In 1873, tensions between Britain and France send Charles Lenox to sea on a covert mission through the Suez Canal. A brutal murder aboard the warship Lucy turns the voyage into a closed circle investigation, forcing Lenox to find a killer among officers and crew before they reach Egypt.

Fresh from his honeymoon and newly seated in Parliament, Charles Lenox has sworn off detective work. When a colleague's footman is found bludgeoned in Mayfair, he is drawn back into investigation, uncovering the servant's double life and a killer hidden among London's most respectable households.

On Christmas 1866, two prominent newspapermen are murdered on the same night, just as Charles Lenox leaves London to campaign for a seat in Parliament. Racing between a wary northern constituency and the capital, he must solve the linked killings without losing his election or his fiancée.

In the autumn of 1866, a worried widow begs Charles Lenox to find her missing son at Oxford. What begins as a search through college rooms and quadrangles soon leads to a shadowy group called the September Society and a murder that reaches back into the past.

In 1865 London, gentleman detective Charles Lenox is asked by his neighbor Lady Jane to look into the apparent suicide of her former maid. Inside a wealthy banker's house full of jealousies and secrets, Lenox must trace a rare poison before the killer strikes again.