{"id":6647,"date":"2014-12-30T13:48:12","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T18:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lettersandsodas.com\/books\/?p=6647"},"modified":"2014-12-30T13:48:12","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T18:48:12","slug":"the-laws-of-murder-by-charles-finchminotaur-st-martins-press-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/the-laws-of-murder-by-charles-finchminotaur-st-martins-press-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"The Laws of Murder by Charles FinchMinotaur (St. Martin’s Press), 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the start of The Laws of Murder<\/em>, Charles Lenox is optimistic: it\u2019s the start of the year (1876) and he\u2019s in the midst of helping Scotland Yard catch a murderer. The new detective agency he\u2019s set up with his friend and protégé, Dallington, along with two other detectives, is about to open, and he\u2019s sure there will be good press for the firm of Lenox, Dallington, Strickland, and LeMaire. But the new business doesn\u2019t start smoothly: on its opening day there\u2019s a headline in the paper saying Scotland Yard is urging it to close, and the piece singles out Lenox specifically, saying he\u2019s likely to be \u201cmore of a burden than an aid to his new colleagues<\/em>” (13). In the agency\u2019s first seven weeks of business, Lenox doesn\u2019t bring in a single case. And then, in early April, he\u2019s asked by the Yard to consult on a case, but one that hits close to home: Inspector Thomas Jenkins, the person on the police force he\u2019d been closest to, has been shot and killed. Before his death, Jenkins specifically instructed his colleague, Inspector Nicholson, that Lenox should be consulted if Jenkins \u201cshould be killed or missing\u201d (30). This, plus the location of the murder, makes Jenkins suspect the Marquess of Wakefield: Jenkins\u2019s body was found practically right outside Wakefield\u2019s house, and Wakefield is the seventh on a list of seven suspects from old cases who Lenox has been trying to get arrested, as part of his return to detective work after his time in Parliament. But it soon becomes clear to Lenox that he needs to be looking at more suspects than just Wakefield, and it later becomes apparent that Jenkins\u2019s murder is not the only crime that needs to be solved. <\/p>\n

I really like this whole series, mostly for the characters and setting, and for Charles Finch\u2019s graceful writing style. I love the descriptions of London and its weather, of wet days and tea and toast, of summer evenings with late sunlight and chilled wine in a back garden. In this book, I also liked the moments of humor injected by the bad English of LeMaire’s nephew Pontilleux, who seems like he has the potential to be a solid detective in his own right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the start of The Laws of Murder, Charles Lenox is optimistic: it\u2019s the start of the year (1876) and he\u2019s in the midst of helping Scotland Yard catch a murderer. The new detective agency he\u2019s set up with his friend and protégé, Dallington, along with two other detectives, is about to open, and he\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6647\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}