Smoke Alarm
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
A female coroner teams up with a British police detective to find the culprit behind a deadly fire . . .
When firemen are called to an intense blaze at the Grange in Melverley, England, they find the bodies of Christie Barton, her daughter, and her father-in-law, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. But evidence suggests that this was not a tragic accident related to the dead man’s dementia symptoms. These deaths appear to be deliberate.
Detective Inspector Alex Randall enlists the help of coroner Martha Gunn, but the puzzle deepens with a second house fire—the occupant, a retired nurse, is missing. Where is she, and what links the two fires? The answers lie in a secret buried in the past . . .
“Details of police procedure and the duties of a coroner frame a compelling story. In addition to the crime story, Masters also focuses on Martha’s personal life, as she slowly begins to learn more about her very private colleague Alex and begins to date again, fearing future loneliness as her children get ever closer to leaving home. A nice mix of mystery and human drama.” —Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An arsonist's torching of a "lovely old house" in the quiet village of Melverley ignites Masters's psychologically complex fourth mystery featuring Shrewsbury coroner Martha Gunn (after 2011's Frozen Charlotte). Three members of the Barton family perish in the fire: mother Christie; her 15-year-old daughter, Adelaide; and her Alzheimer's-afflicted father-in-law, William. Christie's 14-year old son, Jude, escapes, but is injured trying to rescue the others. Husband and father Nigel Barton was out of town at the time. While Det. Insp. Alex Randall and his team are pursuing tenuous leads to people who might have had a grudge against the Bartons, a second fire in nearby Sundorne set exactly the same way destroys the home of Monica Deverill, whose body isn't found in the wreckage. The widowed Gunn and the very private Randall, to whom she lends her shrewd advice, grow closer as they search for the long-buried link between the fatal fire and the missing woman in this satisfying procedural.
