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This intricate novel is set in a small town occupied by quite a few big-city migrants looking for a calmer life and less troublesome times. They find just the opposite as a number of disturbing fires with mysterious fatalities rock the usually quiet hamlet and send both longtime locals and recent transplants into a search for answers. A house fire turns up only one body when there are supposed to be two. Another conflagration uncovers another corpse. Suddenly, the FBI is swooping down to take charge of things, and the locals are wondering why. The town's priest hears the confession of someone directly associated with the deaths, but his vows demand silence. The arsonist is compelled to not only observe the infernos but also start more of them. Soon a raging wildfire gets hellishly out of control. This time the firefighters themselves pay the ultimate price.
Author Sangster fills his tale with characters caught up in both the immediate events plus problems from their past that they can't completely shake. Bill is a firefighter whose nearly thirty-year divorce still plagues him. Bev is a policewoman whose attractiveness too often overshadows her professionalism. Ricardo is an FBI agent whose hard-scrabble upbringing and time in the military has left him with little or no concern for those he rides roughshod over. Additional players fill out a diverse and interesting cast. Sangster's writing is filled with an extensive amount of technical detail and information about how fires are fought, their origins investigated, the gathering of evidence, and more. These insights add authority and credibility throughout his narrative as suspense rises, villains are exposed, and surprising revelations come to light in a fiery tale.