The 8th book in this series, Lenox definitely struggles in this installment. The road back to being a full-time detective is not as easy as he thought it would be. Lenox, Dallington, Polly and LeMaire have opened a detective agency. Unfortunately, Lenox has had a setback in his renown as a respected detective, thanks to a couple of negative interviews slandering him in the newspaper. What really hurts is that the two interviewed were his "friends" from Scotland Yard. Lenox doesn't seem to hold grudges however, especially toward Jenkins, who he worked many cases with. Lenox feels incredibly bad about not pulling his weight in the agency. Since he and Dallington are independently wealthy, he is not used to working for money. Since Polly and LeMaire need to earn money to survive, hard feelings seem to develop pretty quickly. LeMaire leaves the agency after three months in fact, which puts the other three under more pressure to simply "survive" in the business, much less thrive.
Fortunately, despite Jenkins harsh words in the press, he '"saves" Lenox's reputation as a detective by handing him a murder case. I can't bring myself to tell you who it is, because it made me sad. Never-the-less, one murder leads to another murder and it ends up all being connected. I really do love the partnership between Lenox and Dallington. I was happy that LeMaire left the business so quickly. Polly was offered another position as well - with yet another start-up detective agency - which seemed a lot more lucrative, but in the end, she turned it down. I guess I would have been fine either way. It's interesting to me that there is a sudden interest in detective work (in 1876), when prior to that it was looked down on.
I love how Lenox's mind works. He is always thinking. Suddenly pieces will fall into place in his head and he knows either who is involved and/or why it happened. I also like his close relationship with his brother, Edmund, and best friend, Thomas McConnell, the doctor. In this book, Lenox develops a relationship with another Scotland Yard detective, Nicholson. So he continues to be well-connected at every turn, which is helpful when solving crimes - especially murders.
Lenox's career as a detective is back on track by the end of the book, thank goodness. I didn't want him to go back to Parliament! Ha!
Wendy's Rating: ****
No comments:
Post a Comment