Retired Marlborough CFO moves from finance to crime novelist

Bob Ainsworth of Marlborough went with the “write about what you know” concept in writing a series of books set in Nantucket, all dealing with financial fraud. 

Ainsworth is a retired chief financial officer who began to write on a notebook enroute to work around Boston. 

The series — planned to include five books — revolves around a criminal investigator, Harry Bartlett. Ainsworth first wrote “Conned,” about the scammers and fraud artists who prey on tourists. He followed it with “Duped,” about the art theft at the Isabella Stewart museum in Boston. An upcoming book, in December, is titled “Scammed.”  

He has learned much since his days taking notes on the train. 

“About eight or ten years ago, I tried to write a mystery,” he said. “I had my CPA, was a controller and a CFO all my life. I wrote 75 pages and came to a dead end. I had no idea what to do. I put it away and never touched it again. But I always liked mysteries.