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Book Summary and Reviews of The Hidden City by Charles Finch

The Hidden City by Charles Finch

The Hidden City

A Charles Lenox Mystery (Charles Lenox Mysteries, 15)

by Charles Finch

  • Publishes:
  • Nov 4, 2025, 288 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Against the vividly drawn backdrop of Victorian London, amateur sleuth Charles Lenox must unlock a mystery concealed in the architecture of the city itself, in this new novel from acclaimed author Charles Finch.

It's 1879, and Lenox is convalescing from the violent events of his last investigation. But a desperate letter from an old servant forces him to pick up the trail of a cold case: the murder of an apothecary seven years before, whose only clue is an odd emblem carved into the doorway of the building where the man was killed. When Lenox finds a similar mark at the site of another murder, he begins to piece together a hidden pattern which leads him into the corridors of Parliament, the slums of East London, and ultimately the very heart of the British upper class.

At the same time, Lenox must contend with the complexities of his personal life: a surprising tension with his steadfast wife, Lady Jane, over her public support of the early movement for women's suffrage; the arrival of Angela Lenox, a mysterious young cousin from India, with an unexpected companion; the dizzying ascent of his brother, Sir Edmund Lenox, to one of the highest political posts in the land; the growing family of his young partners in detection, Polly and Dallington; and the return of the problems that have long bedeviled one of his closest friends, the dashing Scottish physician Thomas McConnell.

Featuring a beloved cast of characters, a top-notch puzzle, and Finch's trademark humor and richness of historical detail, The Hidden City is a novel by a master at the top of his form.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"An elegant and enthralling Dickensian mystery riddled with the grime and glamour of Victorian London." ―Daisy Goodwin, New York Times bestselling author of American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter

"I have been a fan of Charles Lenox since A Beautiful Blue Death...[an] unfolding cold case murder... with a nice twist." ―Rhys Bowen, New York Times bestselling author of the Molly Murphy and Royal Spyness historical mysteries

This information about The Hidden City was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Charles Finch Author Biography

Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Charles Finch is the USA Today bestselling author of the Charles Lenox mysteries, including the most recent, The Woman in the Water (February 2018). His first contemporary novel, The Last Enchantments, is also available from St. Martin's Press. Finch received the 2017 Nona Balakian Citation Award, for excellence in reviewing, from the National Book Critics Circle. His reviews and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. He lives in Chicago with his family.

Charles Lenox series order (as of 2015)

  1. A Beautiful Blue Death (2007)
  2. The September Society (2008)
  3. The Fleet Street Murders (2009)
  4. A Stranger in Mayfair (2010)
  5. A Burial at Sea (2011)
  6. A Death in the Small Hours (2012)
  7. An Old Betrayal (2013)
  8. ...

... Full Biography
Link to Charles Finch's Website

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