Finch and the Inquiry: One Man. One Dale. One Polite Battle for the Soul of the Countryside. Book 4

The application was called Eden West. Two hundred and eighty homes, a leisure complex, a boutique hotel, an educational glade — whatever that was — and equestrian routes across land that smelled of turnip gas and had flooded every winter since records began. The Planning Statement said it was in accordance with the spatial strategy. Alistair Finch read that and felt something close to rage.

The committee refused it. Unanimously. With moderate theatrics and one dropped flask.

And then they asked Finch to represent the authority at appeal.

This is the fourth Alistair Finch novel — and the one where the stakes are highest. Against him: Daniel Topolski KC, known as Tip Top, a man who speaks in the voice of calm water before a drowning and has spent twenty years turning heritage officers' reports into mulch. Alongside him: Harriet Lonsdale, junior counsel, colour-coded tabs, and an enthusiasm for the NPPF that Finch finds simultaneously reassuring and exhausting. And Penny Thornton, enforcement officer, part-time horse whisperer, full-time force of nature — standing just behind him, where she has always been.

The inquiry will be long, technical, and conducted with the polished brutality that only planning law can produce. Every paragraph of policy will be weaponised. Every photograph argued over. Every silence calculated.

Finch is not a barrister. He is not a silk. He is a planning officer from North Yorkshire with a broken filing system, a dog of uncertain origin, and the firm conviction that Eden West cannot happen.

Not here. Not in the dale. Not on his watch.

The fourth novel in the Alistair Finch series. Can be read as a standalone.