A Beautiful Blue Death (Charles Lenox Mysteries)
St. Martin's Minotaur - St. Martin's Minotaur
Release date: 2007-06-26
Hardcover
Author: Charles Finch
Mystery And Suspense Fiction, Fiction, Fiction - Mystery/ Detective, Mystery/Suspense, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Traditional British, Mystery & Detective - Traditional British, Crimes against, England, Historical fiction, London, Private investigators, Women domestics
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A Beautiful Blue Death (Charles Lenox Mysteries)
Date undefinedFirst in what is hopefully a continuing series featuring Charles Lennox, a Victoria gentleman, who has solved crimes that Scotland Yard seems to take credit for. Set in England 1865, Lenox is called by his next door neighbor and childhood friend Lady Jane Grey when Prudence Smith, Grey's former employee, is found dead in the home of her new employer. Things just don't add up in Jane's mind, but Charles can figure it out, he's clever that way.
Since Pru was found in the home of George Barnard, the current director of the Royal Mint, with a secret of his own; Lennox's instincts are set in high gear and a wonderful who-done-it-and-why leads the reader on a brilliant journey.
A great cast of characters that leave you smirking and curious, making this an interesting addition to the Historical Fiction genre.
But the best part -- this book seems to start in the middle of the whole Charles Lennox experience with references to the past that makes you wonder exactly where Lennox came from and where Finch is going to take him. Will more of the past be explained or will Finch just leave that up to the reader's imagination
A Beautiful Blue Death (Charles Lenox Mysteries)
Date undefinedWhen I pick up a relatively short novel, I virtually never leave it unread. The problem with Charles Finch's first novel was that the writing was so deeply irritating that i found myself gritting my teeth and longing for it to just be over and done with. Not the reaction I want to have while reading and not one I often have, even with writers who crank out books on a tight schedule once every 12 months.
The plot was good for the most part -- so I did skip ahead to see whodunnit. There were glaring exceptions & inconsistencies to this, some which would bother anyone (I think other reviewers have pointed out the weird age difference between Charles Lenox and Lady Jane and how that keeps changing depending on the author's needs).
But the writing... Most authors learn how to balance the information that they have about the plot and characters with what goes on the page for readers in such a way that the reader isn't overwhelmed with superfluous information and distracted from the plot. Finch hasn't mastered this basic lesson. In the middle of a murder case, he has his two principal characters sitting over a nightcap and winding down an evening by talking about the new group of debutantes. Please! That may very well be what has happened, but the reader -- hopefully in the grip of the narrative -- is yanked out of it and left bemused. Where did this come from? The story isn't about a debutante, but a maid who is poisoned. The underlying theme isn't about the role of women in Victorian society -- or if it is, the plot is far more poorly clarified than I suspected. It's irrelevant. And there is a lot more like this -- whenever Lenox meets his brother, whenever we see him musing about his suspects, etc. At best it's boring, at worst distracting and frustrating.
Complicating this is that the author has a heavy hand with dialogue. It's ponderous, to be kind. Half of it is unnecessary twaddle. And half of the descriptive passages, to avoid tedium, could or should be in expository dialogue! But then, if you can't write dialogue, I suppose you don't want to try to do that.
One quick final note -- the damn boots. Charles Lenox, our fearless protagonist and man of means, is racing around London in a pair of leaking boots, which we keep hearing leave his feet cold and uncomfortable. He can have maps and books delivered to his home. He has a butler/manservant. Why not replace the bloody boots at the first opportunity?? It's nonsensical. What could have been a nice detail on meeting the character -- traipsing home through a snowstorm with cold wet feet -- turns out to be one example where the reader ends up saying to him/herself, "this is ridiculous and implausible".
I have given the book two stars instead of one because the plot is, at its core, a relatively solid "cosy" (or "cozy!") Victorian. But if that's what you want, pick up Tasha Alexander's very good three volumes featuring her female society sleuth, and don't be seduced by the marketing into spending good money on drivel. If I sound vituperative, blame it on the fact that I own this opus in hardcover. It goes to the library tomorrow, as a donation, so if someone else really wants to struggle through it, at least they won't be facilitating the author's dreams of a longstanding career by contributing to his royalties.
I'm rarely this irritated about a book -- but then, I rarely encounter one that makes it into print that I end up really disliking. What boggles my mind is that #2 is now in print... I love the genre, there are lots of great examples of it out there -- this is not one of them.
A Beautiful Blue Death (Charles Lenox Mysteries)
Date undefinedA definition from The Oxford American Dictionary, copyright 1999.
precious: adj & adv; 4. adv,colloq. extremely, very (tried precious hard)
In my opinion the main problem with this novel is that the author tried precious hard. I don't know if some of it was written with tongue in cheek or as an inside joke for himself, maybe to even include some friends. I do know that I felt as if there was a joke somewhere and the author was laughing because I hadn't gotten it. Take for example the naming of some of his characters.
--Lady Jane Grey: I actually put this book down and went to do some research on that real-life person to try to figure why Mr. Finch had purposely used such a well known name. I can't answer that question but my mind came to a screeching halt and then revisited that question every time she made an appearance.
--Lady Victoria McConnell (Toto): With all the names available to this author for a nickname for this character why did he chose the one which always made me think of a small dog wandering through the Land of Oz?
--The cousins Claude and Eustace: Can it possibly be just a coincidence that Finch chose to use these two names and made them related in this way? Could an editor not have convinced Mr Finch that it was just barely possible that some potential readers might remember the cousins in several P. G. Wodehouse novels named Claude and Eustace? I wasted a lot of time whenever these two characters came on the scene wondering if this was a joke, an accident or a deliberate usage of the names because of their connection to the Wodehouse stories. They certainly had nothing to do with humor in any way.
Charles Lenox, our amateur detective, is written to be the younger son of a noble English family. Money was no object for Lenox. Why then did he only have one pair of boots? I cannot possibly tell you how tedious it was to read ad nauseaum about his cold, wet feet. And putting on wet boots, and having to go out in the cold and wet again. And taking off wet boots. And warming his cold feet by the fire. See? Tedious. I also found myself, after having finished reading the book, completely unable to describe the physical appearance of any of the characters in this book. The only possible exception to this problem might be the private detective Lenox hired to help him. Might be, may be.
There are two attempts written to enable Lenox to display his Sherlockian deductive reasoning. Both examples are bad but the second time concerning a pocket watch is laughable. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might have Holmes perform some incredibly implausable deductions, but at least they were entertaining.
A great mystery story for me is one I enjoy in spite of its imperfections. The improbable situations, the implausable plot or the clues and lines of inquiry with no resolution ever given by an author. This book did not rise to that level for me. The two stars are for fooling me with the motive and the identity of the murderer. But I did have part of it figured out even though the author chose not to reveal important clues until the very end. Ten years from now, if Mr. Finch is still writing mystery novels I may try another of his stories. But until then, no.
