 Vertical Burn
by Earl W. Emerson (Mass Market Paperback - February 2003)
List Price: $7.50 Price: $7.50
Product Details
- Mass Market Paperback: 390 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.12 x 6.87 x 4.20
- Publisher: Ballantine Books; (February 4, 2003)
- ISBN: 0345445902
- Amazon.com Sales Rank: 26,113
Reviews
Amazon.com
This fact-based thriller is more facts than thrills, as Earl Emerson, a lieutenant in the Seattle Fire Department who's penned a series of solid mysteries featuring detective Thomas Black, puts his professional expertise front and center. That may be a plus, as the book's centerpiece is an arson fire in a skyscraper, a scene that brings the NYFD's heroism on 9/11 sadly to mind, giving this book in timeliness what it lacks in narrative drama. There's a plot somewhere here which has to do with a few venal, scheming bad guys in a (fictional) Seattle Fire Department who keep a hero fireman from upsetting their big score by discrediting him, and when that doesn't work, trying to kill him. But Emerson concentrates less on character, story, and pacing than on the highly technical details of urban firefighting, which, while perhaps widening Emerson's appeal to a general audience, may make this title less than compelling to the devoted fans of his mysteries. --Jane Adams
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