Fire Scars

"Matt Solberg is an academic who moonlights as a search-and-rescue leader. He is tasked with finding eleven-year-old Linda, who has gone missing after a pair of fires burned down her family home. After finding the girl-badly injured, but alive-Matt becomes convinced the fires that harmed little Linda were arson. Working with FBI agent Bernie Katz, Matt's investigation ultimately leads him to suspect three people: Tabish, a legendary smokejumper; Fleming, a ne'er-do-well hell-bent on enacting a kind of eco-justice in order to gain the esteem of the men he respects; and ultimately Matt's longtime friend and a leading expert in fire and dendrochronology, Bill Knight. As it turns out, while Fleming and Tabish lit the fires that set the novel's events in action, Bill Knight has a long-game vision not only to burn out the California transplants who are marring Montana but also to exact revenge on a man who, three years ago, accidently killed Knight's wife in a vehicle accident that he caused when he was texting and driving. Through the eyes of the characters in Fire Scars, John B. Wright explores what it takes to overcome grief, the deep fire scars each of the people who inhabit this story carry with them, through fast-paced, ripping action from an author who clearly understands the tragedy and the necessity of wildfires"--