Book Review

“White Fire” by Preston & Child

Sometimes, when I read books by the same author(s), I tend to anticipate an ending because I’m used to the author(s) style. I’ve read Preston & Child and I can assure you that with “White Fire,” I didn’t know what was coming.

Corrie Swanson is determined to win the Rosewell Prize at John Jay College for Criminal Justice. She sets her sights on a particular thesis. In 1876, several miners were killed in a place called Roaring Fork in Colorado by what was believed to be bear attacks. Corrie wants to show perimortem trauma in the miners’ skeletons. She travels to Colorado, where the temperature is at its lowest and the heat of danger at its peak.

While trying to unearth proof for her thesis, Corrie digs up more than she bargains for. She’s hindered by townsfolk while trying to get permission to analyze skeletal remains that were removed from a graveyard, all for the construction of a club. Not one to give up easily, Corrie breaks into the warehouse where the corpses are stored. She is caught and arrested.

Her mentor and good friend FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast comes to her rescue, but can he protect her from herself? He warns her, but she is obstinate and unwavering; she wants the information for her thesis and to solve the centuries’ old murders.

Corrie, Pendergast, and everyone are also concerned about the flames that are threatening to obliterate the town. Fire after fire erupts, burning people alive in their homes.

And I must mention that Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde have parts in this novel as well. You won’t believe what Wilde told Doyle at a dinner party. It’s alleged that… Psyche! I’m not telling. You must read this to find out what they and a lost story of Doyle’s have to do with the chaos and murders in this wealthy, hoity town.

A thoroughly entertaining, gripping read that will captivate you.

Reviewed by Starr Gardinier Reina, author of “The Other Side: Melinda’s Story”