California Fire and Life: A Suspense Thriller (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Jack Wade was the rising star of the Orange County Sheriffs Department’s arson unit, but a minor scandal cost him everything, except his encyclopedic knowledge of fire. Now working as an insurance claims investigator, Jack is called in to examine a suspicious claim: real estate millionaire Nicky Vale's house has burned to a crisp—with his young and gorgeous wife in it. Jack follows the evidence into the crime infested inferno of the California underworld, filled with Russian mobsters, Vietnamese hoods, American crooks, and enough smoldering vice to char the entire gold coast. Things get so hot and deadly that Jack might not make it out alive . . . that is until he decides to fight fire with fire.

Marilyn Stasio

...[W]hen the plot turns on Jackrevealing an elaborate scheme of corporate corruption that calls for him to play the fall guythe heat intensifies until everything this scrappy hero values ends up in ashes. —The New York Times Book Review