JoAnn Ross Blaze

Blaze

JoAnn Ross

Pocket, Aug 2005, $7.50, 400 pp.

ISBN: 1416501649

The Flamemaster feels quite good as he dials from a distance the explosion that enables him to watch the fire that burns Paddy's Pig Restaurant and Dance Club. The Somersett, South Carolina fire department struggles with the blaze in which rescue team member Daniel McGee dies in the inferno. His last message is to his fianc , firefighter Tess Gannon that he loves her.

Two years later, former ATF Agent Gage O'Halloran learns the impossible that the Flamemaster lit a blaze in South Carolina. Gage knows that Randolph Griffith is locked away in prison so a copy cat is out there. Arson investigator Tess looks at a new fire in which a woman died while being tied to a bed when Gage arrives and pompously tries to take over. He thinks a link exists between a strip joint fire, a deadly warehouse inferno, and the latest arson-homicide. Gage informs Tess that he wants a relationship with her, but also says the rope is the not known signature of the Flamemaster who is in San Quentin. They work together trying to learn who the copycat is and how did this person find insider information on the Flamemaster even as their attraction burns each other with desire.

Mindful of Kathryn Shay's fabulous firefighter's series, BLAZE is a terrific romantic suspense that keeps the audience anticipating a showdown, but wondering with whom. The lead couple need one another; however he at first sounds crass and she has not gotten past her loss, so her leaping into bed with him right away seems off kilter; their reasons to avoid commitments on the other hand augments this exciting fiery intrigue.

Harriet Klausner