A burning good read

Fatal Burn. Lisa Jackson. American crime thriller.

Lisa Jackson is a new author on my reading list, but she's apparently very popular in her native US. Fatal Burn is probably a good example of the reason why. It can't easily be left aside.

The story begins simply with the abduction of a teenager. Then it travels a much more complex route that includes back roads of memories of the various people connected with the child, at the centre of whom is her birth mother, Shannon Flannery, who had given her away for adoption.

As the title suggests, the plot revolves around fire, and one way or another the participants in the story are either fascinated or terrorised with fear by it, as the teenager's kidnapper sets off on a trail of revenge in a particularly psychotic way.

Shannon looks after animals, both strays and boarded with her, and is rather off men for the. But against her initial better judgement she gets involved with her daughter's adoptive father, who has set out to find the girl after police and FBI have apparently failed.

After that, Shannon's world gets very complicated indeed. So does the story, into which the author has managed to weave a number of clever subterfuges to keep the reader guessing. No more than the heroine herself, I was very puzzled until pretty close to the end. The clues were all there all along, though, and it was fun trying to put them together.

Lisa Jackson writes in a tight, fast-moving style most of the time. But she has the ability also to slow down the pace when she figures the characters, and the readers, need time out.

I was the first person to take this one out of the library. I expect the date-stamp page will get significantly more cluttered over the coming months. BB