Charlie Peace Books In Order

Publication Order of Charlie Peace Books

Charlie Peace is the lead character in all of Robert Barnard’s Crime/fiction mystery series. He is a young lad from Scotland who starts his detective work from London but later moves to the North to fight more crime. Charlie Peace (series by Robert Banard) started in the year 1989 with a novel ‘Death and the Chaste Apprentice’ with ‘A charitable body’ being the last of the total 12 series in 2012.

Death and the Chaste Apprentice

It all happens at the Ketterick, a London suburb during the rehearsal of a popular play ‘The Chaste Apprentice of Bowe’ by Elizabenath is held. A new landlord, Des Capper is in town but is not liked by many probably because of his ‘know-it-all’ character which is not surprising why he is despised by many and ends up murdered during one of the plays. Among the audience watching the play is Charlie Peace who offers help to solve the mystery behind his death. What you will notice with the first 40 pages of this series is the twists and turns in characters that will leave you in awe.

A fatal attachment

This one is about a celebrity scholar, Lydia Perceval who lived in a small cottage by the country side. She had a sister who had two handsome sons namely Gavin and Maurice but was married to a drunk. The two boys really loved their aunt even more than they did, their mum. In this book we see how Lydia had a way with young lads. She had the ability to see and nature the great potential in them. She mentors Maurice into becoming a politician but instead, she gets a disappointment when he decides to work as a TV anchor. Gavin makes her proud by following her advice on becoming a diplomat in the Royal Navy. Her pride is short lived when he loses his life in the Falklands war.

This obviously leaves her lonely as she doesn’t have anyone to mentor. Luckily, she later on meets the Bellingham siblings who just moved into the neighborhood. Their mother is sick and the dad is a deadbeat so she again tries to get them to like her and nature them. Her plans are cut when she gets murdered in the process. This is where Peace and his superintendent come into the crime scene to try and find out who murdered her and why. Their detective skills lead them into discovering that even though she had many admirers, she also had a number of enemies who wanted her dead.

Other Charlie Peace series

The corpse at the Haworth Tandoori

In this series Charlie and his helper Oddie are faced with a difficult task of identifying the body of a young man found dead at a car park. What makes this book a gem is the motives and circumstances in which the crime occurred.

A hovering of vultures

Another crime takes place in Yorkshire village and this time round it is even more gruesome. Two bodies are found lying at a new museums site. A famous author takes his sisters life and later on kills himself. Charlie and Oddie again have to dig deep into the mystery behind their deaths.

No place of safety: A crime novel

A home-less shelter owner living in North England has been found dead. Mike Oddie and Charlie Peace discover that two teenagers, Katy Bourne and Alan Coughlan are on the run after this incident. The strange part is that even though they are schoolmates, they are total strangers which do not make sense why they should run away together. They have to put their two brilliant minds together to join the missing pieces to this puzzle.

The bad Samaritan

Imagine a vicar’s wife declaring she no longer believes there is a god; certainly all hell is bound to break loose. In this Series, Rosemary Shieffield suddenly wakes up and loses her faith. The feeling just leaves her feeling free and liberated but there is a twist; she still has to play her church roles but the congregation will hear none of it. The story later on introduces a new character, Stanko an alien in the town is being chased by the cops and seeks help from Rose. Reading on and a murder takes in the church. A man is found dead in a nearby park and Charlie has to investigate to find out the killer who is later revealed as his relative.

The bones in the Attic

The title itself gives a clue to what is about to happen. At the beginning Robert introduces us to a former soccer player Matt Harper who is now a television and radio anchor. In addition, Matt Harper is now the owner of the Elderholm which is a street of old houses in Leeds. Over the years, he has remodeled as a contractor around the attic. In the book the relationship between Matt and Charlie Peace determines whether the child has mets his tragic in 1969. The book’s setting happens in the summer where Matt is portrayed to have spent his time in a very old community within the town.

However, Barnard, the author, summarizes the book with suspense leaving the reader in a situation where he is hoping for more and pondering on what might happen both in the present and future possibilities. This is one of the pieces of the series that gives us insight into the life of Charlie who is the main character of all the series.

Charlie Peace Series

In conclusion, the Charlie Peace Series have become one of the world’s classic books. They have passed over from one generation to the next and have become a master-piece which never ages. The author of the books created a series which is one of a kind and one that is a must read. In addition, some of the books have gotten their way into the mainstream media as movies and in the theatres as plays, serving not only as a medium of entertaining but also for educating and informing. Robert Barnard must have indeed had a magical touch for writing.