Books: The Fleet Street Murders
Part of the Charles Lenox Mysteries series, Charles Finch’s latest novel will appeal to readers who enjoy sophisticated Victorian detectives like Sherlock Holmes *** 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
The Fleet Street Murders, latest in the Charles Lennox Victorian detective series
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 9/1/2010 - “One inspiration for this whole series was the Palliser novels by Anthony Trollope which track the fate of several young politicians in Victorian London over six books,” says The Fleet Street Murders author Charles Finch. “I made a little time for politics in the first two books of the Lenox series, but in the third I decided I really wanted to delve deeply into it and portray a 19th Century election.”
Well plotted with strong details of the time, The Fleet Street Murders is for readers who enjoy Sherlock Holmes and Lord Peter Wimsey. Lenox is charming, suave, amiable and honorable. We get to know more about Lenox as a character who has more then one passion: detective work, politics and his fiancée Lady Jane Grey. Hopefully, the supporting characters will get deeper as the series progresses. The women are secondary in this male-centric book. Maybe when Lenox marries Lady Jane Gray, as his wife she’ll play a more significant part in the mysteries.
The Fleet Street Murders tells the story of two Fleet street journalists, Daily Telegraph writer Winston Carruthers and Daily News editor Simon Pierce, who are murdered on Christmas night. Amateur detective Charles Lenox wants to solve the crime, but needs to focus on his budding political career and upcoming marriage to his fiancée Lady Jane Grey. Lenox gets the opportunity to run for seat in Parliament in distant Stirrington sooner then originally planned. But this takes him away from the case and his fiancée. How will he do everything at the same time?
“The Victorian period is a fascinating one, because it combined such broad social changes…new voting rights and land rights…with such a conservative tempo to daily life,” says Finch. “That’s why I like writing these mysteries. I get to live secondhand in a remarkable time.”
“I read a great deal about Parliament in the 19th Century, and also about the National Mint, which comes into the mystery, in histories of the period,” says Finch. “But I always think the most crucial research for this series was reading the great Victorian novelists…Gaskell, Eliot, Dickens, Collins, Trollope. What’s most important to me in an historical mystery is atmosphere and character.”
“I happen to have a tremendous research library, the Bodleian, at my disposal, which makes it much easier,” says Finch. “I didn’t look over historical documents for Fleet Street, because I relied on secondary histories for it, but for the book I’m currently writing, the fifth in the series, I’m looking at old nautical papers from the 19th century.”
Finch says he never has much memory of doing the day-to-day work of writing. “I remember the period of time across which I wrote it, but for all these books I never really remember the actual writing very vividly. Perhaps because it’s very un-self-reflective in a way. It’s absorbing, so you don’t have time to stop and think about what you’re doing. It’s the opposite of most people’s image of a writer, which is a sort of permanent state of Thoreau-style navel-gazing.”
“My agent picked my first manuscript out of the slush pile, which makes me one of the luckiest people in the publishing industry,” says Finch. “That never seems to happen.” Finch’s agent, Kate Lee at ICM, sold the book to St. Martins. Finch’s editor at St. Martins is Charles Spicer. The Fleet Street Murders hasn’t been optioned or adapted for film or television.
Finch says that a challenge writing his novels is that there’s less time than he would like because they come out once a year. That and his friends will complain that he didn’t use their names in the book.
Finch is currently writing his fifth Charles Lenox mystery. Finch is based in Oxford, UK, where he’s studying for a PhD in Renaissance Literature. He was born in Manhattan.
The Fleet Street Murders (Charles Lenox Mysteries) by Charles Finch
Paperback, 320 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books, 1 edition (July 20, 2010), Language: English, # ISBN: 9780312650278