Flame Out A Novel

June Lyons, the FBI-agent-turned-small-town-cop introduced in the acclaimed debut Ice Shear, must solve two connected cases whose roots stretch back decades—and touch the lives of those closest to her As a police officer in the Rust Belt town of Hopewell Falls, New York, June Lyons keeps an eye on the abandoned factories that line the Mohawk River. On patrol she spots a slick of gasoline running across the parking lot of an old apparel factory; inside, an unconscious woman lies near smoldering piles of old fabric. The fire destroys the building down to its subbasements, and the badly burned woman June rescued is in a coma. No one knows who she is or how she got there. Thirty years earlier, June's father made a name for himself when he arrested the factory's owner, Bernie Lawler, for killing his wife and child, though their bodies were never found. Sifting through the factory's ruins, June and her partner, Dave Batko, discover a woman's body sealed in a barrel. They're sure that the body will be Luisa Lawler's and her cold case file will finally be closed. But the body isn't Bernie's wife's, and the discovery opens old wounds and cuts fresh ones, triggering a new cycle of violence and revenge that threatens to destroy her family and friends. As June and her neighbors discover, beneath Hopewell Falls's small-town facade lie some unbearably ugly truths—secrets that are only beginning to surface. With the case growing more complex, June teams with FBI Special Agent Hale Bascom to find the truth—before everyone she loves, and the town itself, spins dangerously out of control.