The Foundling (Angie Smith) (Angie Smith (CXVI)) Books in Order

The Foundling series begins with Sex Lies and Swimming Naked, a dark crime thriller centered on Jonathan Miller. Jonathan agrees to help a woman who says she is a police detective, expecting a job that he can manage. Instead, the decision places him in the path of violence and puts the people closest to him at risk.

Jonathan is not a polished detective or secret agent. He is a man with his own history, weak spots, and reasons to make bad calls under pressure. That makes the danger feel close to home. As the situation worsens, he has to work with an old adversary, someone he has good reason to fear, because that may be his only route to the truth.

The partnership is anything but comfortable.

A young woman's assassination becomes the point where the story opens out. Jonathan and his reluctant ally follow leads into a network of buried secrets, powerful people, and crimes that have been kept out of sight for decades. The mystery is not limited to finding one culprit. It asks who has benefited from the silence, and how far those people will go to keep control.

The tone is firmly adult and tense. Expect violence, abduction, murder, intimidation, and shifting loyalties rather than a cozy puzzle or a slow, clue-by-clue investigation. The book moves through risky decisions and sudden reversals, with Jonathan repeatedly forced to choose between the safer option and the one that might protect his family.

Even as the conspiracy grows, the personal stakes remain important. Jonathan's choices affect his home life as well as his own safety, and that keeps the wider plot from becoming only about shadowy figures in the background. His vulnerability is part of what gives the story its edge.

For now, Sex Lies and Swimming Naked is the clear place to start. It introduces Jonathan Miller, establishes the series' darker crime-and-conspiracy mood, and lays out the trouble that defines the Foundling world.