Sins of the Fathers

Night Rounds [by] Helene Tursten

[New York; Soho Press, 2012]

978-1-61695-006-4; $25.00

When the lights go back up at the Löwander Private Hospital, the ICU nurse, Marianne, is missing, the surgical patient Peterzén is dead, and the other nurse, Siv Persson, sees the ghost of Nurse Tekla mounting the stairs in the moonlight. Moments later, the security guard finds Nurse Marianne dead in the basement, lying across the back-up generator, which was also dead, its powerlines cut.  She has ligature marks around her neck, and is missing one shoe, which was found later in the elevator.

The Violent Crimes Division puts in an appearance early the next day in the persons of Superintendent Sven Andersson and Detective Inspector Irene Huss.  They begin to ask questions.  They are told about the love affair rumored to have happened between the formidable Dr. Hilding Löwander, the father of the current director of the hospital, Dr. Sverker Löwander, and Nurse Tekla.  It was broken off when Mrs. Löwander became pregnant with her son, and Tekla hanged herself in a garret room. Of course, the inspectors tell Nurse Siv that they do not believe that a ghost was responsible for the murders.

But there are still odd things at the hospital.  Nurses disappear, and aspects of the hospital’s history, and the history of its key family, take on greater and greater importance.  Then a newspaper article comes out saying that a witness had seen the ghost on the grounds.  Huss goes to see the journalist, Kurt Höök.  She begins to search for the witness Höök only knows as Mama Bird.

They find a garden shed on the grounds of the hospital, which looks to be one of Mama Bird’s hidey-holes.  But even when they stake it out, they do not find her.  Visiting with a street person at one of the downtown soup kitchens, they learn her name.  They also discover that she had a relationship to the hospital.  Then the shed is torched.  The river that goes near the shed begins to flood because of a blockage under a bridge.  The bicycle that belonged to a missing nurse named Linda is found there, holding back the dead and mangled body of Mama Bird.

The body of the missing Linda is then found hanging in the same garret room where Nurse Tekla was found.  More hospital people are interviewed, as are both of Sverker Löwander’s wives, past and present.  Even the wife of the dead patient Peterzén and her son are visited.  Old records are looked at. Old luggage is gone through.  Personnel from other hospitals, who know the players in this drama are also talked to by the inspectors. The books of the hospital, which show that it is bankrupt, are looked at.  At last, Inspector Huss puts together the whole story, which has a lot to do with the past, and also the future, as it turns out.  The final scene is pretty exciting, as Irene Huss is very nearly killed by the culprit.

There are some really nice touches to this book, beyond the really depressing scene set at the old hospital.  There are lovely insights into Irene Huss’ family life, as well as the very human dynamics of the Violent Crimes Division in Göteborg, Sweden.  A very satisfying police procedural. Recommended. ~ lss-r

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Library book.



Counterfeit and the Real Thing

Counterfeit Road [by] Kirk Russell

[Sutton, Eng.] Severn House [2012]

978-0-7278-8145-8; $28.95

22 years to the day, a videotape of an unsolved 1989 murder – the murder of former Secret Service agent Alan Krueger – arrives for the San Francisco Homicide detail, and falls into Homicide Inspector Ben Raveneau’s proverbial lap.  What’s more:  back then the 61 $100 bills in the victim’s pocket were considered legitimate; but now the Secret Service takes another look and calls them counterfeit. What is going on?

There also seems to be a link to the present, which no one wants to talk about.  Ben studies the video.  He pores over the old case files.  He hunts for the couple who found the body.  He enlists the help of a retired homicide inspector.  Then a young man shows up, saying that he’s the son of the man whose name was in Alan Krueger’s pants pocket.  He has photographs, which he brings along for Raveneau to see.  A photo tech he knows tells Raveneau that the pictures were taken in Hawaii, and names the places. There are pictures of the young man’s father, Alan Krueger, and two others with whom he saw service in Vietnam.

Then, there is a shooting in a warehouse.  A truck had just delivered plywood and driven off.  Then a shooter killed three of the workers and wounded another, who died on the way to the hospital.  The boss was out of the office at the time.  The saws were still running at the little cabinet shop when the cops got there.  Raveneau went after the trucker, but got no real answers.

When he went back to the shop, Raveneau inspected the palette of plywood and discovered it was faked. Inside hollowed-out parts of the plywood there were things which turned out to be bomb casings.  Unfortunately, they try to follow them when they are trucked away, but they lose track of the truck, so they still have no answers, but lots more questions.

Raveneau goes to Hawaii, to the house owned by Jim Franks, the father of the young man with the photos in San Francisco.  It looks like he will find answers there, but the house is no longer lived in.  He is shot at, and gets to meet another son of Jim Franks, and then his friend Tom Casey.  Casey was one of Krueger’s Vietnam buddies.

Eventually Raveneau gets to tie all of the loose ends together.  There is a very large conspiracy, which includes the money found on Krueger – so-called “supernotes” – extraordinarily good counterfeit U.S. currency, which predated the known supernotes, as well as the bomb casings, and this small circle of Vietnam vets.  Not to mention Feds of different kinds, and people who were not who they said they were, but turn out to be threatening, with pieces of the past hanging about them.  It is quite a relief for Raveneau to finally get back to his ordinary life, and the time to celebrate his girlfriend’s new bar to the utmost.  A great thriller – highly recommended. ~ lss-r

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What are the Odds...



The Probability of Murder [by] Ada Madison

New York; Berkley Prime Crime [2012]

978-0-425-24667-2; $7.99

The Benjamin Franklin Hall, home of the Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics Departments, is famous for its Friday afternoon parties.  This one is in celebration of the mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius, and a sophomore named Chelsea Derbin is demonstrating one of the things that made him famous, the Möbius strip.  Onlookers include members of the various departments in the building, both faculty and students, including Math Department Chair Sophie Knowles. Chelsea’s presentation runs out of steam, and she looks to her professor, but, fortunately for Sophie, her main squeeze has just arrived – Bruce Granville, a medevac helicopter pilot.  He comes with questions – What’s going on at Henley College’s library?  There’s a whole fleet of city cop cars out in front.  Then cell phones all over the room start ringing, and rumors spread about someone being taken away in an ambulance.  The party breaks up as everyone leaves to find out what’s happening.

At the Library, Sophie and Bruce meet Bruce’s good buddy, Virgil Mitchell, one of Henley PD’s finest. Virgil tells them that the College’s reference librarian, Charlotte Crocker, one of Sophie’s dearest friends is dead.  Her body had been found by a student who worked as her assistant.  Virgil then begins to question Sophie about her knowledge of Ms. Crocker, definitely putting Sophie on the defensive.  And it’s only the first time.  Needless to say, Sophie’s and Bruce’s plans to have a romantic and educational weekend in Boston caves in, and Bruce leaves to join his buddies for a mountain climb in Vermont.

A few days before her death, Charlotte had given Sophie her duffle bag.  It had sat in the corner of her office for a few days, and then Bruce picked it up and brought it to Sophie’s house when her brought her home, in shock because of Charlotte’s death.  Now Sophie is being charmed by the duffle and its siren call provokes her open the bag.  It’s full of money.  Lots and lots of money. She hides it, wondering why her friend had so much cash in such a variety of bills.

Sophie feels it her duty to call the only relative of Charlotte’s she had ever met to tell him about Charlotte’s death.  A few weeks back, Charlotte had asked if she could bring her nephew Noah to see the medevac outfit at the airport, where Bruce works.  Bruce and his colleagues had really put on a good show for Charlotte and Noah. There’s a few sheets of paper in the duffle with phone numbers on them, and “Jeff/Noah” is written on one of them.  Sophie calls the number.  It’s early in the morning for the guy on the other end.  He doesn’t seem to know what’s going on or who she is, and she figures this is Jeff, Noah’s roommate.  The guy admits he’s Jeff, but that there is no Noah. He explains that he works at the snack bar at Boston College, and that Charlotte had come in one day and saw his ad to do odd jobs.  She had paid him to play her nephew Noah. Sophie remembers the outing.  Noah wasn’t very interested in the medevac business, and Charlotte seemed especially interested in the airfield. She realized that Charlotte had used her and Bruce.  The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Her friend wasn’t a friend.  She didn’t know anything about her.  Who was this woman she thought she knew?

First, she calls her best friend Ariana, who comes over to cheer her up, with bags of goodies. They’ve been friends forever. Sophie tells her about the phone call and shows her the bag of money and they speculate on why the librarian might have had it.  Ariana tells her she has to get rid of it because it’s bad luck, and probably also dangerous.  Sophie takes it to Virgil after Ariana leaves. 

Sophie occupies her time while Bruce is gone sleuthing around Charlotte’s death, with many pizzas shared with Virgil, as she finds out from him about Charlotte’s history of aliases, her history of crimes going back many years, her incarcerations, and more.  Sophie follows the clues left in the duffle bag, finding out who some of her friends and associates were.  She continuously checks in with Virgil as her house is broken into and various people become ubiquitous in her life.

Then Bruce’s party is lost in a blizzard on their mountain in Vermont, and Virgil and Sophie spend time together hoping and praying for the threesome’s safe return.  They do come back, but injured.  One is still in the hospital, but Bruce and the other, who are on the mend, spend time getting TLC in Sophie’s little house, which is great, because Sophie’s investigation gets her almost killed by someone she hadn’t expected to be involved until literally minutes before it happens.

This is a cozy little mystery from the mistress of the genre, Camille Minichino, writing under the pseudonym of Ada Madison. She also writes the miniature mysteries under the pseudonym of Margaret Grace.  Her stuff is fun: neatly plotted with great characters. Highly recommended. ~ lss-r

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Hiding in the Shadows

Shadows at the Fair [by] Lea Wait

New York; Scribner [2002]

0-7432-2553-8; $24.00

Maggie Summer became a widow after Christmas last year, and is now trying to put her life back together.  She’s still teaching at Somerset County College in New Jersey, where she lives, but she’s actively building her antique print business, Shadows, by attending more antique fairs.  As the book opens, she is just pulling into the parking lot at the Rensslaer County Spring Antiques Fair.

As she unloads her wares and sets up her booth, she learns that there have been several deaths at the shows she’d missed, including the Westchester Show last weekend.  Although she is able to greet the Wyndhams and her friend Gussie and Gussie’s nephew Ben, things are different with some of the other people with booths nearby. Will Brewer’s booth is taking the space of the fellow who died at the last show. Always considered one of the most congenial, and even model, couples, Susan and Harry Findley were not setting up their booth together as usual.  In fact, Susan seemed to be spending a lot of time with Vince, who runs the shows.  Harry was helping Joe Cousins unpack his First Editions.  What is going on, Maggie and her friends wondered.

But the show got underway on time, with buyers walking around with drinks and snacks and sellers bustling to answer their questions, and, hopefully, get a sale.  Gussie’s 20-year-old nephew chose to get out of the way and practice running on the track out beyond the parking and restrooms.  He has Down’s Syndrome, and, although fairly high-functioning and quite charming to Maggie, he liked being by himself.

The buyers do come and buy, although some are buffaloed by their spouses into saying no, after they’ve said yes, so that all of the sales do not happen, Maggie is generally pleased with what’s going on.  She also gets a hefty seller’s discount on a mirror she saw in another booth, so she’s very happy as she buys it and takes it back to the cabins on the property where she and her friend Gussie are staying.  Gussie and Maggie visit and order pizza while waiting for Ben to return.

Ben interrupts them by rushing in, hysterical.  He believes he has killed a man he thought was going to hit a woman. He ran over to stop him, and he pushed him down.  The man didn’t get up.  There was blood, even on Ben’s hand.  The woman fled.  Since Gussie is in a wheelchair, Maggie volunteers to go back to the fairgrounds with Ben to see about the man.

On the way, they pick up Will Brewer, who is staying on scene in a van.  He’s new, but seems really nice, and is willing to help them look.  They do not find a dead man where he should have been, and they start to walk back to the entrance.  Ben describes the woman he saw with the man, and Maggie is pretty sure it’s Susan Findley, so they look for Susan’s van.

They are interrupted by a woman screaming and screaming.  It is Susan, and Harry is lying at her feet – very much dead.

Needless to say, nobody gets out of the immediate area, so Maggie and Ben take potluck with Will, and then sleep in his van.  A very upset Susan comes with them and Maggie tries to calm her down.  They all get questioned by the police, and Ben is taken as Suspect #1.  Maggie spends much of the next day trying to figure out where people were at the time, and the show goes on.

Maggie’s sleuthing also goes on, as she talks to others and puts things together, including who ate and drank what, who was sleeping with whom, what possible items could have been murder weapons, who owed whom money, etc.  What she puts together almost gets her killed, but does unmask the murderers, gets Ben out of the cops’ clutches, and promises a brighter future for the antique business and even Maggie’s life.  You learn quite a bit about the antique print business, as well as antiques in general, and you get to spend some time with wonderful characters.  An enjoyable mystery. Highly recommended. ~ lss-r 

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Knots of Connections

Blind Goddess [by] Anne Holt

New York; Scribner [2012]

978-1-4516-3476-1; $15.00

Hanne Wilhelmsen, the “star” of 1222, is back on the streets of Oslo, her regular stomping grounds.  She is partnered with police attorney Håkon Sand for a very important case, as it turns out.

It all starts out when attorney Karen Borg is out for a walk with her dog, when she discovers the body of a man, shot three times and mutilated.

Then a young Dutchman is found sitting in the street, with blood all over him. He will not speak to the police when they take him in, but he will speak to Karen Borg, and only to her.  He tells her that he killed the dead man.  She tells him she can’t be his lawyer, because she doesn’t do criminal law, but he will only have her, because, since she found the body, she can’t have had anything to do with the man who died.  A rich, powerful defense lawyer, Peter Strup, offers to defend him for her, but the young man will only have Borg.

Then Hans E. Olsen, a lawyer, is killed.  Hanne tells Håkon that she believes the two murders are related.  Ludvig Sandersen, the first man murdered, had had the second man murdered as his lawyer.

Karen Borg goes to the lock-up to talk to the Dutchman.  Gradually he tells her that he was part of a syndicate.  His contact was a used-car salesman in another town. He believes there are lawyers involved in the syndicate at a higher level than his.

Frederick Myhreng, a journalist, comes in at Håkon’s behest.  He has intimated that he knows something about the case, but doesn’t really say much.  Håkon reminds him not to blab to the public, but to keep a tight lip, and report what he discovers.

Håkon and Hanne visit Olsen’s office, where he was shot.  They are looking for clues, not about the murder, but to see if they can find anything about his connection to a syndicate.  They find porno films and a piece of paper which looks like a code. This last they stash in their evidence box.  A retired cop specializing in codes tells them it is a code based on a book.  They just have to find out which book and the code will solve itself.

Hanne comes in to work on a Sunday.  She is bludgeoned over the head.  No one saw anything.  The Dutchman receives a threatening note, which causes him to go off the deep end, ending up in a locked hospital ward.  And they get a bit of a clue:  the initials J.U.L., which can only mean the lawyer Jørgen Ulf Lavik.  Hanne and another cop do a stakeout to watch him.  They end up chasing a man who climbs over a wall, leaving a large-sized boot behind.  The cops pull Lavik in for questioning, but get nothing.  Lavik leaves in ecstasy, because they don’t know anything.

Then Myhreng visits Lavik.  Lavik puts him off with lawyerly rhetoric, but Myhreng sees a chance.  He asks to go the restroom, and jimmies the window, so that he can return that night, which he does.  He discovers a key, which he copies in beeswax and takes to a keymaker for duplication.

Karen Borg accepts a dinner invitation from Peter Strup.  She is having a lovely time being wined and dined, when he begins to pressure her with questions about the Dutchman.  Then he threatens her – he must take over the case.  Karen defends her client’s right to have whom he wants to defend him, and then leaves the restaurant in a fury.

Hanne and the cop she was on stakeout with go to visit the used-car dealer who had been the Dutchman’s contact.  They find the Dutchman’s phone number encoded in the fellow’s personal phone book.  Meanwhile, they have to get a belt to keep the Dutchman’s trousers up, when he goes to court – he’d lost so much weight in custody.  He’s taken back to his cell, where he uses the belt to hang himself.

Another man dies from an overdose while in custody.  He is a client of Lavik’s.  They find money under the floorboards in his apartment.  Fingerprints taken from one of the banknotes matches what they lift from a coffee cup used by Lavik during one of his visits to Police HQ. Håkon and Hanne visit his office to arrest the outraged Lavik.

Karen Borg believes it is her best interest to get out of town.  She badly needs a rest, and the case had been hard on her, especially with her client committing suicide.  She goes to her country house, looking forward to being alone, in a peaceful place.  But her statement is needed for the case – it’s the only thing that can really tie things all together, and the hearings are not going well without it.  Håkon sends Hanne to get her statement.

She is exhausted when she brings the statement, which she typed up on a laptop while there, back to Håkon.  She doesn’t photocopy it. Håkon is too tired to photocopy it, either.  He goes home, leaving the original – and only copy – on his desk.  An interloper sneaks in and takes it, looks for other copies, and, finding none, destroys the only copy there is.

Lavik is set free without Borg’s statement.  Hanne and Håkon end up on a motorcycle riding through the snow to get a new statement.  But all hell has broken loose at Borg’s cottage.  It is on fire; her dog is dead; she is badly hurt; Hanne and Håkon are both hurt, trying to save her; both Lavik and Strup are there, as are a number of henchpersons of various kinds.  Eventually, all is tied up, both there and back in the city.  The journalist Myhreng gets his licks in finally, helping to prove the case for the police. A number of prominent people go down for their bad deeds, but not all.  There will obviously be a lot of mopping up afterwards to do.  A rollicking good time, with the tension mounting to the big climax and the even more fascinating dénouement.  Highly recommended. ~ lss-r

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Library book.

The Collision of Bad Faiths



Bad Faith [by] Robert K. Tannenbaum

New York; Gallery Books [2012]

978-1-4516-3552-2; $26.00

Faith has turned very bad in this book, with True Believers committing crimes in the name of religion. 

It all starts with a group of Christian fundamentalists who believe in faith healing.  A phone call comes into 911 saying that a little boy is dying in this tenement building on the Upper West Side, and when the paramedics go to see what’s up, they are stopped by the child’s mother and the Rev. C.G. Westlund and his followers in the End of Days Reformation Church of Jesus Christ Resurrected. Cops help the paramedics, and when they see the boy, they know he isn’t long for this world.

The parents, David and Nonie Ellis are accused of reckless manslaughter in the death of 10-year-old Micah, because they didn’t seek medical attention for him, when he was obviously so ill.  When the couple lived in Memphis, he had been diagnosed with astrocytomas, a kind of cancerous tumor on his brain.  That’s when Rev. C.G. Westlund, then known as Doctor of Divinity John LaFontaine of the Holy Covenant Church of Jesus Christ Reformed, came into their lives.  Now the Reverend and his flock are protesting in front of the court building, railing particularly at Butch Karp, the District Attorney for the City of New York. 

The protestors have been there for several days, but the trial of the Ellises is coming up soon and David has just found in the mail a letter about an insurance policy he knew nothing about.  It is purported to be signed by his wife and himself, with Westlund/LaFontaine as the benefactor.  David is angry, and he is walking towards the court building, in front of the crowd.  Suddenly a woman named Kathryn Boole steps out of the crowd and shoots David Ellis.  Then she turns on Butch Karp, who asks for the gun.  Suddenly one of the police takes out Boole.

It turns out Boole’s will gives Westlund the building housing both his church and his living quarters.  Marlene Ciampi, Butch’s wife, and a private investigator in her own right, decides to find out more about this rather incestuous group of so-called Christians.  She goes to Memphis.

Then there are Muslim fanatics, following a Chechen woman terrorist named Ajmaani [née Nadya Malovo]in blowing up a tourist ferry in front of the Statue of Liberty.  Attendant in the party that deflects their actions is Lucy Karp, daughter of the District Attorney for the City of New York, Butch Karp, and her fiancé, Ned Blanchette.  Lucy is conversant in many of the languages being used by the group.

Nadya is actually working for a group of federal investigators, including the F.B.I. and the U.S. Marshall’s Service.  She asks for a lawyer and gets Bruce Knight, a former up-and-comer, who practically drank himself off the map, and is working to atone.

Bruce had a memorable trip to the bowels of NYC 4 years ago, when he found a place to sleep off a subway tunnel.  He is awakened by David Grale, known as the Mad Monk, because of his style of dress and behavior.  Grale is the leader of the Mole People, homeless people living in the subway tunnels and sewers and contributing to the community in various ways.  Their group is formed like the early Christian Communities, and they help one another.

They also line up behind David when he declares war on those he believes are possessed by demons, and are out to wreak havoc upon the City of New York. One such person is Andrew Kane, a former mayoral candidate, for whom Nadya Malovo worked, before he was captured by Grale and forced to live, chained as a dog, underground, where he went slowly mad.  Grale is a friend to the Karp family, especially Lucy, with whom he worked at a soup kitchen years ago.

Thus the stage is set for the big Hallowe’en parade, with Butch as the Grand Marshall, riding in a float at the end of the parade.  All hell breaks loose.  It also explodes big-time in Memphis, where Butch’s wife Marlene is.  The collision of the “bad faiths” is quite an extravaganza, but the moral Jew Karp prevails.  Excellent thrill factor, mounting to a fever pitch. Highly recommended. ~ lss-r

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Library book.

Fire Fun and Games



Fireproof [by] Alex Kava

New York; Doubleday [2012]

978-0-385-53551-9; $24.95

Cornell Stamoran is a drunk, and on the streets, sleeping in a cardboard box.  But he used to be a partner in one of the District’s top accounting firms.  When he returns to his box one night, he discovers that someone else had been there, and there was a body in his box.  A dead woman with her face smashed in.  He drags her body out, then discovering that there is gasoline on his clothing.  He looks up to see a man, closer to the warehouse, who is pouring gas on the ground.  The man smiles and lights the gas.  Cornell runs.

Ace reporter Jeffrey Cole and his camerawoman, Samantha Ramirez, are there to cover the big warehouse fire.  So are F.B.I. agents Maggie O’Dell and R.J. Tully, and District detective Julia Racine.  Tully and Maggie are profilers, trying to find a clue to the identity of this serial arsonist.  Maggie is still  recovering from the attack made on her during the last case she was on, with headaches and nightmares.  She does have a sense that she is being watched, and that the perpetrator is at the scene of his crime.  They discover the body outside the warehouse, thinking that it’s odd it’s not in the flaming warehouse.  Then there is an explosion which torches a second warehouse.  Firefighters put out the blaze and they find a badly burned skull.  Tully also sees someone skulking about and tries to follow him, but the man throws his backpack at him and runs away.  Maggie follows him, even through a manhole down into the sewers, where she is rescued by Julia before she gets lost. Not only is she chasing someone down there, but someone is chasing her, before Julia gets her.

When Tully explores the content of the backpack, he discovers Cornell Stamoran’s passport.  A homeless guy with a passport?  Huh?  This bears some looking into.

Meanwhile, Maggie has a battle on another front.  Jeffrey Cole has had a first part special on her, including pictures of her home, which came from his skulking around her house, which has high walls and is not easily found, because she is trying to guard herself from attack.  She discovers Sam back there, and asks her why Jeffrey is doing this to her.  Sam has no answer.

The second night of coverage of her life is an interview with Maggie’s mother.  She and Maggie have a strained relationship, since Maggie believes it’s her mother’s fault her dad left the family.  Also, he started another family, which produced her half-brother Patrick, who is currently staying with her while he has a job as a firefighter with a private security agency.  Patrick has already gotten into hot water with the company for using private equipment and personnel to help fight public fires – not ones his company has interest in.  Maggie’s mother tries to get Patrick to leave Maggie’s house, but Maggie comes home and throws her out, since she is angry about the interview.  Mother gets back at Maggie by trying to commit suicide.

Meanwhile, it looks like Patrick’s partner, Wes Harper, is also interested in Maggie.  She is interested in him, thinking he might be the serial arsonist.  He does have experiences with fires, as he describes what fire does to the human body to Sam and Jeffrey.  He and Jeffrey hit it off, with their mutual interest in fire, but Sam is disgusted.  In fact, she is getting pretty disgusted with Jeffrey, who has pushed her around through her entire career.  She leaves to go home and see her mother and 6-year-old son, whom she takes out for Chinese food.

She gets a phone call from Jeffrey, but ignores it.  Firetrucks go by the restaurant, and she realizes that there is a fire in the next block, and Jeffrey must be really angry at her.  This proves to be true, as he pulls up to her house just when she leaves her mother and son off.  He really reams her out because her tardiness has lost him the story, which actually had fatalities in it, which would have made their manager happy. 

Later that night, Sam is drugged and left to burn up in the house next to Maggie’s, which is torched, along with Maggie’s.  Maggie comes home from the hospital to see fire and police personnel all over the street where she lives.  She also realizes that Patrick and her two dogs are inside the house, too.  She is frantic.

However, all is OK in the end.  The firefly, as the team calls the arsonist, confesses – and you’ll be surprised to know who it is, and Patrick and the dogs are safe – one of them, Jake, also saves Sam next door.  But there are several loose ends that are not tied up.  We are bound to see these people again.  A first-rate thriller. Highly recommended. ~ lss-r

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