What Didn't Burn

WITH A GUN, YOU CAN STEAL HUNDREDS: WITH A LIE, YOU CAN STEAL MILLIONS

Special Agent Zip McMathis needs a change. After seven years on the Philadelphia FBI's drug/gang task force targeting mostly inner-city Black and Brown young men, she's ready to do something different. Most importantly, she needs more predictable hours to focus on her own chronic infertility issues.

Plus, there was that very public blowout with her fellow agent, witnessed by the entire task force. She loves him like a brother, but instead of clearing the air, she asks to be reassigned to the white-collar crime squad.

Zip's first fraud case: a potential arson-for-profit scheme by a wealthy socialite who appears to be funding her extravagant lifestyle by repeatedly torching her estate and collecting the insurance payouts. The most recent fire has raised the stakes; this one claimed the life of the socialite's much younger husband. Foul play is initially ruled out, but Zip suspects money and influence thwarted any real formal investigation. She questions if this third fire was a convenient way to be rid of an inconvenient spouse.

Zip’s “routine” case soon spirals into an investigation of arson and death that threatens to consume her. Will she be able to find the evidence she needs for a murder conviction before someone else ends up dead?

Retired Special Agent Jerri Williams knows her way around a police procedural; she lived it for 26 years as one of the first 25 Black women agents hired by the FBI. Now retired, she created and hosts a podcast about FBI cases to the delight of true crime aficionados around the world and has made it her mission to ensure correct representation of the FBI in the media. WHAT DIDN’T BURN was inspired by an actual case.