After six years in Parliament, Charles Lenox, gentleman detective and frequent consultant to Scotland Yard, decides to give up his seat and open a detective agency with three colleagues. All four are excited about the new venture, but as the months pass, Lenox watches his caseload steadily decline. Sneering articles in the London newspapers question his detective abilities, and his friends at the Yard stop asking for his help. Then, one of Lenox's longtime colleagues at the Yard is murdered, and the case leads Lenox into a larger web of lies, violence and revenge that may be connected to his professional struggles.
In his eighth Lenox mystery, Charles Finch (An Old Betrayal; The Last Enchantments) returns to the world of 1870s London, displaying his talents for historical detail and intricate plots that turn on a few key details. Longtime readers will appreciate the presence of recurring series characters: Lenox's wife and daughter; his doctor friend, Thomas McConnell; and his protégé, Lord John Dallington, now a valuable colleague at Lenox's detective agency.
As Lenox and Dallington work to solve the murder case and unravel the trickier mystery behind it, Lenox wrestles with questions of vocation: Is he destined for a career in detection; if not, can he be satisfied with the life of an idle gentleman; and perhaps most importantly, will his determination to catch the killer put his family in jeopardy? Well-plotted and thought-provoking, The Laws of Murder will satisfy Lenox fans and appeal to readers of historical mystery. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams