It is just after
Christmas in
1919, and the icy grip of a relentless winter freeze has seized Manhattan.
Snowstorm after snowstorm buries the city, and plummeting temperatures
freeze
the North River solid. With the streets of New
York in impassable chaos, most people stay
indoors to
find what comfort they can inside the walls of their chilled apartments
and
freezing tenements.
Except one. A
solitary, troubled,
demon-plagued man who walks the silent streets to burn -- to bring peace
to his
tortured soul through the ferocious destruction of fire.
It is just after
Christmas in
1919, and New York City is
besieged
by fire and ice.
Thrust into this
maelstrom of fire
and ice is New York City Fire Marshal Wes Causey. As the members of FDNY
battle
the weather and the gasoline-fueled flames, Wes sets out in search of a
madman.
As New Year's looms the number of fires and their terrible death toll
increase -- as does the pressure from the newspapers and city hall. But
despite his best
efforts, Wes can't find the man setting the horrific fires. The
arsonist's
trail has become as cold and buried as the city itself.
Wes stalks the cold
streets of New
York City, hunting a man driven to near
madness. From
a childhood wracked with abuse, to the tortured voices in his head, the
arsonist plunges deeper and deeper into his own fire-plagued mind. A
voice
pushes him to set fires again and again -- a voice he embraces, the
voice of an
angel, an archangel known to many as Uriel -- the Fire of
God.
Just as he did in The Twelfth Hour, his first Wes Causey
novel, Paul Hashagen brings his unique appreciation of New
York City's history and his meticulous attention to
the details of actual firegrounds to Fire
of God, a fast-paced and compelling novel that brings New
York City's past into America's
present in extremely important ways.
