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A new book in the Charles Lenox series, number 15, is set in London in 1879. All of his books have been well written with unusual plots, but this one is outstanding.

Charles Lenox is an aristocrat, who works as an amateur detective. He has an agency set up, which is doing well without his daily input.

His old valet Graham, who over the years became a personal assistant when Lenox was in Parliament, is now in Parliament himself.

Lenox is recovering from a knife wound, and struggling to take it easy; but does get involved when his old housekeeper Mrs. Huggins asks for his help. She is back in London, living in lodgings near her son’s pub, and it seems as if someone has been hanging around her door at night, and trying to get in.

Her place belonged to an unsavory apothecary, Martell, who was murdered seven years before. The main suspect had an alibi, but also vanished. Martell did keep a rooftop garden where he grew the herbs for his odd concoctions.

Does this unsolved murder have anything to do with the attempts to get into her home? Lenox observes scratches around the lock, and an odd carving near the door.

Later he finds the carving again, near another old unsolved murder! He enlists the help of some of the new investigators at his agency and is quite pleased with their skills. Then Lenox is confronted by a man he fears may be behind the murders.

In his private life, he welcomes the daughter of his distant cousin, Jasper, who has died in India and named Charles as her guardian. Angela arrives after months at sea, along with a young Indian woman, Sari, that she considers a sister.

They are both welcomed into Lenox’s home. His brother, Sir Edmund Lenox, appears to be rising politically, and Angela is fascinated by his work. Lenox’s wife, Lady Jane, has been demonstrating for votes for women, and has been the victim of gutter press.

The streets, the clubs, the pubs, the working men and women are beautifully depicted and all a part of the story.