Blue Smoke

August 15, 2005
Romantic suspense queen Roberts (Blue Dahlia
, etc.) lights up Baltimore's Little Italy with this appealing story of love, family, food and arson. Eleven-year-old Reena Hale, watching her family's restaurant go up in flames, decides to become an arson investigator. The fire shapes another child's destiny, too, as Joey Pastorelli sees his father go to prison for setting the blaze. Reena's close-knit Italian family rebuilds; Reena grows up and completes police and firefighter training. Despite inheriting her mother's good looks, Reena proves unlucky in love, mainly because her beaux tend to die in fires, but her fortunes look up after she meets hunky carpenter Bo Goodnight. Bo gets along with Reena's family, friends and co-workers, and handles the demands of her career with patient humor, so nothing stands in their way—except an obsessed, pyromaniac stalker determined to kill any man Reena loves. Although it does take Reena an inordinately long time to identify her nemesis, Roberts portrays investigative procedure more accurately than her many imitators. Well-sketched supporting characters with potential subplots of their own suggest that the prolific Roberts will put her feet to the fire again. Main selection, the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club
.

Starred review from August 15, 2005
The past impacts the present with a vengeance as arson cop Reena Hale gradually realizes that the firebug who has been plaguing her Baltimore beat has a personal reason for his actions -her. The identity of the killer is fairly clear to the reader from the beginning, but watching the characters try to figure out the pattern will keep readers on edge. For all its fascinating arson investigation details, this tale is more about family and relationships than about murder. Well crafted, nicely paced, though occasionally violent, this contemporary takes a clear-headed heroine and an almost-too-good-to-be-true hero and gives them a love story that will make you smile. Still, it is Reena's wonderfully eclectic, oh-so-Italian family that makes the book truly memorable. Classic Roberts. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ "6/1/05.]

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2005
A lot of hard work is involved in becoming an arson investigator for the Baltimore Police Department, but Catarina "Reena" Hale believes it's worth it. There is nothing she enjoys more than the unique challenges involved in discovering the reasons someone would commit arson. The only thing that Reena doesn't like is that it is extremely tough to find a man willing to accept her crazy schedule and -danger-filled job. Now, just when it seems that she has met a man--her new next-door neighbor, carpenter Bowen Goodnight--willing to accept her for who she is and what she does, Reena begins receiving anonymous calls from someone threatening to use fire to destroy everyone Reena holds dear. Roberts effectively opens the mind of her twisted villain to readers to create suspense, but she balances these violent scenes with equally powerful scenes of love and family as Reena gets the support she needs to defeat a sociopath, whose capacity for evil knows no bounds. " Blue Smoke" is another of Roberts' riveting combinations of danger and romance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)