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Summary
Summary
A huge mountain fire leaves destruction - and death - in its wake. But are the charred remains of a male body really the result of a natural disaster, or murder?
The Meredith Mountain fire starts on Labor Day weekend and rages for days - an awesome sight, leaving a trail of havoc and destruction in its wake. Alice Adams edits the Clark's Fort Guardian newspaper, ably assisted by her nephew, Stuart Campbell, and the two cover the blaze for the paper, vowing the local community with their stunning photographs and features.
When the fire is finally contained and the mop-up crew discover a burned male body under a fallen log, Alice and Stuart investigate. It seems he died in the fire, but with no ID and nobody knowing anything about the body, they soon face a daunting task - and some disturbing revelations. Can they unravel the truth?
Author Notes
Elizabeth Gunn is the author of the bestselling Jake Hines series of police procedurals set in Minnesota, where she grew up, and the Sarah Burke series set in Arizona, where she now lives. A long-time innkeeper with a taste for adventure, Elizabeth has lived 'everywhere' and been a private pilot and a diver, as well as a writer. She now lives in Tucson, Arizona and climbs mountains for fun.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Retired school teacher Alice Adams, the heroine of this underwhelming series launch from Gunn (Denny's Law and five other Sarah Burke police procedurals), works part-time at the Guardian, a newspaper in Clark's Fort, Mont., where her 22-year-old nephew, Stuart Campbell, is employed as a reporter. When a horrific fire breaks out on Meredith Mountain, Stuart grabs his camera and sets out to record the action, while Alice takes his written notes and knocks them into passable shape. During the postfire cleanup, the charred remains of a man are found. The subsequent autopsy determines that the man did not die in the fire. Soon Alice and Stuart are out to discover the victim's identity and scoop the big-city news organizations. Readers will have fun watching the appealing Alice realize that, rather than baking cookies or doing yet more gardening, her true interest lies in her budding career as a journalist. On the downside, Gunn's approach to the story's drug element and the radical about-face in the behavior of a key character are naïve and forced. An abrupt ending doesn't help. Hopefully, the sequel will be better. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A retired schoolteacher's part-time job turns her into an eager sleuth.Alice Adams, bored with retirement and thinking that helping to edit the Clark's Fort Guardian will give her something to do, ends up spending long days at work when Montana's Meredith Mountain fire becomes big news. Her nephew, Stuart Campbell, who encouraged her to take the job after he signed on as assistant editor and general dogsbody right out of college, convinces the paper's owner, Mort Weatherby, to let him go up on the mountain to take pictures and report the story. Once his stories and his amazing photos start coming in, they have to print more and extra issues to keep up with demand, and Alice is able to circumvent stingy Mort by convincing him that Stuart's extra expenses will be worth it in the long run. After the fire is finally controlled, a new discovery keeps the story alive and growing: a body so badly burned that it will take a team of forensic scientists to come up with a cause of death. It takes Alice and Stuart a long session with Google to figure out what the final autopsy report is saying. In the meantime, some of Alice's former students are ramping up their drug experimentation from a little pot to opioids stolen from their parents to finding a heroin connection. Many of the stories Alice and Stuart hear are contradictory and confusing. Have drugs arrived in a big way in their quiet little town?In a departure from her police procedurals (Denny's Law, 2016, etc.), Gunn introduces some engaging new characters but leaves too many loose ends for a satisfying conclusion. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The fire on Meredith Mountain in south-central Montana, which covers an area the size of Rhode Island, is a catastrophe that creates opportunity, at least for the Guardian, a weekly newspaper in the small town of Clark's Fort. Recent college grad Stuart Campbell, newly hired as assistant editor, makes his name as a photojournalist covering the blaze, while his aunt, retired English teacher Alice Adams, hired part-time to edit the paper, polishes Stuart's prose as the Guardian publishes daily during the fire and earns kudos as the little weekly that could. Then a charred body is found during the cleanup, and the paper's coverage is extended, with Stuart and Alice playing pivotal roles in identifying the remains and ascertaining the cause of death. A separate plot thread, involving a group of young men who call themselves the Gamers and gather weekly to use drugs, wraps around what turns out finally to be a murder investigation. This departure from Gunn's Jake Hines and Sarah Burke police procedural series is a solid stand-alone with well-drawn characters, drawing on familiar investigative-journalism themes to create a thoroughly engaging crime novel.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2018 Booklist
