Smoke Alarm

October 8, 2012
An arsonist’s torching of a “lovely old house” in the quiet village of Melverley ignites Masters’s psychologically complex fourth mystery featuring Shrewsbury coroner Martha Gunn (after 2011’s Frozen Charlotte). Three members of the Barton family perish in the fire: mother Christie; her 15-year-old daughter, Adelaide; and her Alzheimer’s-afflicted father-in-law, William. Christie’s 14-year old son, Jude, escapes, but is injured trying to rescue the others. Husband and father Nigel Barton was out of town at the time. While Det. Insp. Alex Randall and his team are pursuing tenuous leads to people who might have had a grudge against the Bartons, a second fire in nearby Sundorne set exactly the same way destroys the home of Monica Deverill, whose body isn’t found in the wreckage. The widowed Gunn and the very private Randall, to whom she lends her shrewd advice, grow closer as they search for the long-buried link between the fatal fire and the missing woman in this satisfying procedural.

November 1, 2012
When three people die in a tragic fire, is it an accident or murder? That's a question for DI Alex Randall and coroner Martha Gunn. Beautiful old Melverley Grange has been severely damaged by fire, and Christie Barton, her daughter Adelaide, and her father-in-law, William, have all died from smoke inhalation. Only her son Jude, who escaped via a rope ladder, is saved by a policeman with a taste for heroics. Jude, who had attempted to get back into the house, survives with his hands and arms burned. Randall learns that William Barton was suffering from dementia and had started a fire in the house once before. But would he have used petrol to soak the floors and locked the women in their rooms? Although her job as coroner does not involve detection, Martha, a widow with two teenage children, has a gift for nosing out facts that Randall respects and uses (Frozen Charlotte, 2011, etc.). The two are attracted to each other, but Randall is unhappily married and never discusses his wife. When a nurse who called the tip hotline loses her house to the same sort of blaze as Melverley, Randall's team starts looking for a connection and finds it in a 40-year-old fire. The nurse worked at a mental institution where many inmates died in a fire, and William Barton was a fire officer on the scene. Because no body was found in the house, a massive search is launched for the nurse, who may have the answers to many questions. A tasty combination of police procedural and forensics, with a touch of romance.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2012

Three members of a family die when an arson-generated fire engulfs their home. A teen son survives, as does the father who was out of town on business. Leads are slim to none. Some want to blame the deceased grandfather who had Alzheimer's and who started a house fire just six months earlier, but DI Alex Randall doesn't buy it. Coroner Martha Gunn (his sounding board) doesn't either. But when a second house burns down, the force is puzzled as to how the cases might be connected. They cannot find the second house's owner, a retired nurse. Randall suspects the teen son knows more than he's letting on, but he wants to let the boy grieve. It's not until Randall learns the grandfather had been a firefighter that the case--a sad and troubling one--breaks open. VERDICT The fourth entry in this solid procedural series (after Frozen Charlotte) showcases coroner Martha as muse for DI Alex Randall--but it's really not her case this time. Randall does open up more, suggesting more personal revelations in the future. A must-pair with Kate Ellis's recent Watching the Ghosts.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2012
Shrewsbury coroner Martha Gunn becomes involved in the investigation of the deaths by fire of Christie Barton, Barton's daughter, and her father-in-law. Only Barton's son, Jude, escapes the burning building, and her husband, Nigel, was out of town the night of the fire. Was the fire set by one of Nigel's former business associates, by Alzheimer's sufferer William, or by Nigel himself? Or was it a random act? When Monica Deverill's house is torched in the same manner, and Monica turns up missing, Martha and Detective Inspector Alex Randall look for the connection between the two fires and a third fire that took place years before at a psychiatric hospital. Details of police procedure and the duties of a coroner frame a compelling story. In addition to the crime story, Masters also focuses on Martha's personal life, as she slowly begins to learn more about her very private colleague Alex and begins to date again, fearing future loneliness as her children get ever closer to leaving home. A nice mix of mystery and human drama.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)