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Published Nov 2011
320 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
Charles Lenox, Member of Parliament, sets sail on a clandestine mission for the government. When an officer is savagely murdered, however, Lenox is drawn toward his old profession, determined to capture another killer.
1873 is a perilous time in the relationship between France and England. When a string of English spies is found dead on French soil, the threat of all-out war prompts government officials to ask Charles Lenox to visit the newly-dug Suez Canal on a secret mission.
Once he is on board the Lucy, however, Lenox finds himself using not his new skills of diplomacy but his old ones: the ship's second lieutenant is found dead on the voyage's first night, his body cruelly abused. The ship's captain begs the temporarily retired detective to join in the hunt for a criminal. Lenox finds the trail, but in the claustrophobic atmosphere on board, where nobody can come or go and everyone is a suspect, he has to race against the next crime - and also hope he won't be the victim.
At once a compulsive murder mystery, a spy story, and an intimate and joyful journey with the Victorian navy, this book shows that no matter how far Lenox strays from his old life, it will always come back to find him.
"Starred Review. While Finch may not be the first to set a murder mystery at sea, he perfectly integrates the ships routines and customs into the fair-play plot." - Publishers Weekly
"The descriptions of life aboard a ship in 1873 are especially entertaining." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about A Burial at Sea was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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.
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