Tuesday, April 06, 2010

A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch

My book club chose this book as this month's read.  I wasn't crazy about it and I guess the group wasn't either because only two of us showed up to discuss it.


The book takes place in the 1800's in London and follows a detective named Lenox who is asked to help solve the mystery of a woman's murder.  He works with several assistants, including his brother, his neighbor Lady Jane, his butler, and some other associates. While they are trying to solve the case, a second murder occurs and Lenox then solves both related cases.

The most unique thing about this book was that while it was written in the past decade, it was written in the style of Victorian England.  Lenox and Lady Jane have some very proper flirtation and everyone has tea every day.  While this made the book drag in some places, it was delightful in others.  Lenox was charming and even progressive for his time.  There were, however, some references to the "new technology" of fingerprints that I found was too deliberate in setting the time and place.

Overall I thought the solution to the mystery was clever but not something I could have figured out myself by reading carefully.  Despite how well the setting and style were done, I wouldn't be too interested to read another book from this series any time soon.

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