Charles Belfoure Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Charles Belfoure is an architect and author from Westminster, Maryland.

The author went to Columbia University and the Pratt Institute for his certifications and undergraduate degrees.

Thereafter, he went on to practice historic preservation as a historic conservation consultant and architect specializing in credit and historic tax consulting.

The author was born to Charles West Belfoure a Polish teacher and immigrant and Kristine Vetulani a writer. He spent much of his childhood in the suburbs of Baltimore in the Woodlawn neighborhood as he went to Woodlawn High School.

In 1983, he got his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Pratt Institute. Ten years later, he got his Real Estate Development master’s degree from Columbia University.

Charles would then become a professor at Baltimore’s Goucher College and at Pratt. Through the years he has also been writing freelance for The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times.

He currently makes his home in Westminster, Maryland in the United States.

Belfoure has been known to make use of his knowledge and experience in architectural history in the writing of his novels.

While he has not had any training in creative fiction, he has said that he was inspired by famous authors who attained success without any training.

Of particular importance in his literary journey was John Grisham one of his favorite authors that does not have any creative writing training, but makes use of his legal experience to pen his fiction works.
Charles Belfoure decided that he would make use of his knowledge to pen architectural history works.

Some of his biggest influences include classic works such as “The Mayor of Casterbridge,” “The Power Broker” by Robert Moses, “Jude the Obscure” by Tom Hardy, and “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding.
Charles Belfoure usually goes back in time to pen novels inspired by history and architecture from a different era.

As a specialist in historic preservation, he has also written several architectural histories and has been granted a national grant for architectural research by the Graham Foundation.

The idea for his debut novel “The Paris Architect” was inspired by real historical events during the Edwardian era. It was a time when the saying of mass was a crime and Catholicism was outlawed.
Priests used to defy the ban as they used manor houses out in the rural areas to hold mass. When these houses were raided, the priest used to hide in a temporary hiding place cleverly designed into the architecture of the house by a carpenter.

That hiding place was nicknamed the “priest hole” and came in very handy whenever a place for holding mass was raided.

Most of the time the soldiers sent to raid the house would ransack the building for hours looking into every nook and cranny and never find the clergyman.

Some characters in this novel are inspired by real people as the author has said that the character Adele was inspired by the famous woman who used to sleep with German officers named Coco Chanel.
Father Jacques was inspired by the priests that were deported for hiding Jewish children from the Nazis.

In the course of his research, he found information about an officer who used to keep a diary that detailed his embarrassment at the rounding up of Jewish children.

“The Paris Architect” by Charles Belfoure is set in Paris in 1942, at a time when Jewish people were being rounded up.

Unfortunately for the Jews, most of the French citizenry is unsympathetic to their plight. Lucien Bernard is one of the French citizens who does not hate Jews but could not be bothered to go out of his way to help them when push came to shove.

At present, he is an unemployed architect trying to make a living when he is offered a job by Auguste Mane a very wealthy man. The latter will offer him the commission if he agrees to take up a highly secretive commission.

It turns out that his client has been working with Jews and helping them escape and evade imminent death and persecution. Lucien is desperate for money and takes up the offer but he is certain that he is only doing it for money.

Life has been hard under the new regime and he has a mistress and wife who need him to bring home the bacon.

When he successfully completes his first job, Manet manages to convince him to take subsequent jobs. Soon it becomes something of a private game between Lucien and the Nazis.

Charles Belfoure’s novel House of Thieves is a work set in New York during the late 19th century.

The lead in the novel is admired and well-established architect John Cross. The man has set himself some very high standards in his personal life as well as his career.

Since he is the architect for New York’s elite, he has to live up to a lot of unwritten expectations and rules. It is a society where one blot on your record could personally or publically send you spiraling down with no hope of ever rising.

On the night before he is to attend his eldest child’s graduation from college, a stranger approaches him intending to discuss the future of his son.

He soon learns that James Kent the stranger is a gangster who has kidnapped his son. It turns out that his son has accrued massive gambling debts in college that he cannot pay back.

The man tells him that George his son would be killed if he does not pay up on the debt. It is a very huge amount and Cross does not have that kind of money.

But when the kidnapper learns that John is an architect, he comes up with a plan that will make it possible for him to pay up the debt.

He wants Cross to help them with robberies making use of his knowledge of building plans to get them into places they would otherwise not be able to get into.

“The Fallen Architect” by Charles Belfoure is a riveting work that tells the story of a man disgraced.

Douglas Lyon is an architect that has lost everything following a huge scandal. During a packed performance at one of the music halls he had built, the balcony collapsed leaving dozens dead.

Layton is certain that his design is not to blame as he believes it must be the fault of someone else. However, he has no proof which leaves him to face the fury of Londoners looking for someone to blame.
When they finally let him go, he is determined to take a new path with a new identity and new name as he begins work as a set painter. Not long after he begins stumbling into dead bodies hidden in some of the most glamorous theater halls in the city.

It does seem that someone is determined to ruin his life.