St. Albans Fire

Winter is on the wane in Northwestern Vermont. The moon hangs bright and cold in the silvery night sky over hundreds of square miles of a peaceful, dormant landscape of dairy farms. Bobby Cutts—young, heartbroken, and unable to sleep—enters the family barn to tend to the beasts within… and encounters the last nightmare of his life. Suddenly and explosively surrounded by bolts of fire racing in all directions, Bobby and the entire herd perish in a searing, stampeding, Hellish circle of flames. Called to the scene to investigate, Joe Gunther instantly recognizes arson. But why, and by whom? And for what possible reason? There is little insurance, the family is loving and tightly knit, and there are few neighborhood animosities. But murder this is, and Gunther quickly discovers it’s just one of a series of recent barn-related arsons. Someone is wreaking havoc across the bucolic farmlands surrounding the town of St. Albans, and before Joe can discover who that is, he must dissect the social fabric of the community, the soul of Bobby’s family, and the complex, cut-throat business of farming lurking under its placid exterior. This journey will take Joe and his sidekick, Willy Kunkle, from the country to gritty Newark, New Jersey, where they will get lessons in the ways of both big city cops, old-time Mafia soldiers, and the power of money. Before it is all done, Joe will engage in a deadly game of chess that transcends mere police work, and confront at last an opponant with nothing to lose, whose final mission in life is to destroy the woman closest to Joe’s heart. and when the Oberfeldt case takes a turn for the unexpected, Joe realizes that he is faced with a politically perilous situation—and a possibly lethal one personally.