Alex Finlay Books in Order

Start here: Every Last Fear
If you want the Sarah Keller thread: Every Last Fear → The Night Shift → Parents Weekend
If you like damaged found families: What Have We Done
If you want a missing person case with international stops: If Something Happens to Me
If you want a serial killer mystery stretched across years: The Anniversary

Alex Finlay is the pen name of Anthony Franze, a thriller writer and Washington, D.C., lawyer born in Opelika, Alabama. He has said his childhood involved a lot of moving, including stretches on a Pacific island, in a small village in the UK, and in the Far East. It is not the straight-line backstory people expect from a courtroom lawyer turned novelist.

Before the Alex Finlay books, he published legal thrillers under his own name, including The Last Justice, The Advocate's Daughter, and The Outsider. That part of his life is not just a footnote. He graduated magna cum laude from Notre Dame Law School and went on to build a career in appellate work, including more than 40 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He has often pointed out that law and fiction are closer than they look, because both depend on clear writing, structure, and the power of a story.

He did not come to fiction in one dramatic leap.

Writing had to fit around the rest of life. He has described working on scenes late at night, on the Washington subway, and later on long walks, drafting on his phone. It was a practical way to keep going, and it suits the clipped, forward-driving feel of his thrillers.

The name Alex Finlay arrived with Every Last Fear in 2021. The idea for that book came when a trip to Mexico, news about suspicious tourist deaths, and a true crime documentary collided in his head. He has said the pen name gave him room to write without fear, without worrying about expectations, and simply follow the story.

Readers who start with Every Last Fear get the full Finlay mix right away: family tragedy, public scrutiny, a possible wrongful conviction, and twists that keep changing the shape of the story. The Night Shift followed with a Y2K-era Blockbuster attack and a second, eerily similar crime years later. What Have We Done centers on former foster kids whose buried past refuses to stay buried. If Something Happens to Me adds a missing woman, a note, and an international chase. Parents Weekend turns the anxiety of college drop-off into a vanished-students mystery. The Anniversary revisits one date, May 1, across years as two lives stay linked by violence and unanswered questions.

Family pressure is his engine.

Again and again, Finlay writes about survivors, outsiders, parents and children, people under suspicion, and the long shadow of trauma. There is often a loud public layer to the crime too, reporters, podcasters, internet speculation, a documentary, the kind of attention that can distort a case and a family at the same time. He also likes multiple viewpoints and shifting timelines, which lets him pull several lives together at once. Even when the plots get big, the emotional stakes usually stay personal.

He still lives in Washington, D.C. He continues to balance fiction with his law career, serves on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, and helps lead the thriller and mystery section of the Leopardi Writing Conference in Italy. Several of his books have been picked up for screen development, and Parents Weekend has already been acquired for adaptation.

What readers tend to remember is the combination of speed and feeling. The hooks are sharp, the chapters move fast, and the people at the center are usually carrying more grief, guilt, or loyalty than they first let on.