The September Society

The September Society (2008) Charles Finch

Set in England in 1866

This is the second Charles Lennox mystery; I’d picked up much of the series on sale as ebooks, so since I’d read the first (and second) books years ago, I felt okay picking up the series here.

I also remembered that I wasn’t enamored of the first two books I read, but since I was in the mood for an historical mystery, and since I couldn’t find anything else I wanted to read, I decided to try again.

Lady Annabelle visit Charles Lennox in the very early morning, asking for his help–her son has disappeared from Oxford, which normally wouldn’t be cause for concern in a young man of that age, however, the murdered cat leads Charles to believe something sinister has happened.

There were things I enjoyed about this story, and things that I liked less well or that irritated me.

What I enjoyed were the bits of history interspersed into the story.

Oxford was made up of about twenty constituent colleges. Each of these had its own traditions, its own library, its own chapel, its own dining hall, its own professors, and its own buildings.

On some unrecorded day in the 1090s, perhaps a little earlier, perhaps a little later— the Battle of Hastings still in memory, at any rate, and the Domesday Book not more than a decade old— an anonymous cleric and one or two students gathered by appointment in a small room (was it at an inn? in a church?), and the University of Oxford was born.

I fully recognize, however, that interesting historical bits do not make an excellent historical mystery.

The mystery itself I vaguely remembered from the first read, and it was okay.

Mostly though I liked the historical bits.
Rating: 6/10

Published by Minotaur Books

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