Vendor
	Fletcher Agency Melissa Chinchillo
Original language
English
Categories
Thriller / suspense fiction

A FIRE IN THE NIGHT

Christopher Swann

Acclaimed Southern mystery master Christopher Swann delivers a riveting novel of murder and mayhem perfect for fans of Linwood Barclay and Michael Farris Smith.

Nick Anthony has retreated to the North Carolina mountains to mourn the untimely death of his wife. Once a popular professor, Nick just wants to be left alone with his grief. But when his estranged brother and sister-in-law die in a house fire, a stunned Nick learns he has a niece who is missing…and may be a suspect in her parents’ deaths.

By the time the call came, her parents' fate was sealed, but sixteen-year-old Annalise escaped the deadly fire with her life --and information someone is willing to kill for. At the scene of the crime, the men who set the fire spotted Annalise, and are now in a desperate search to find her. Feverish and exhausted, Annalise stumbles onto her uncle's porch. Now Nick must protect her and unravel the mystery of his brother's death.

Hired to retrieve stolen information at any price, private military contractor Cole and his team track down and kill the thief and his wife. But their daughter has vanished, along with the one thing Cole needs. When his search leads him to Nick’s cabin, Cole figures a retired professor will be easy enough to handle. But Nick has a hidden past of his own—and more than a few deadly tricks up his sleeve.

Available products
Book Published 2021-09-01 by Crooked Lane Books

Comments

“I don’t know how Swann did it — he’s written a mesmerizing book that’s literary fiction, a spy novel, and a relentless thriller all in one.”
—Lee Goldberg, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“A Fire in the Night is a searing story about the ties that bind and how sometimes they begin to strangle us. Christopher Swann has created a nuanced yet thrilling novel of family, grief and ultimately hope. Not to be missed.”
—S.A. Cosby, best selling author of Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears

“A rural noir that’s loaded with surprises, Christopher Swann’s A FIRE IN THE NIGHT blends the moral grays of the best espionage stories with a taut, relentless mystery steeped in setting. Character-driven and memorable, A FIRE IN THE NIGHT is Swann’s best yet.”
—Alex Segura, acclaimed author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, Blackout and Miami Midnight

“Swann really delivers with his latest, a solid murder mystery starring Nick, a grieving former professor with a secret past and an orphaned niece who shows up on his doorstep. Tense and action-packed, with an ending that will make your heart stop, A Fire in the Night is a nail-biter with a Southern twang.”
—Kimberly Belle, internationally bestselling author of Dear Wife and Stranger in the Lake

Life abruptly gets more interesting and more dangerous for a retired professor of medieval history.

There are excellent reasons on both sides that Nick Anthony hasn’t spoken to his brother, Jay Bashir, for 20 years. So when Jay phones him out of the blue asking for help, Nick doesn’t just hang up; he rips out the phone in his North Carolina mountaintop retreat. Next thing he knows, he has two unexpected visitors. The first, Jackson County Deputy Joshua Sams, tells him that Jay and his wife, Carol, have been found dead inside their burned-out house in Tampa—Jay dead of smoke inhalation, Carol with her throat slit—and asks him if he’s seen their 16-year-old daughter, Annalise, who’s gone missing along with her boyfriend, Eric Morgan. The second is Annalise herself, who’s followed her father’s urgent plea to deliver a mysterious map and thumb drive to the uncle she’s never met. Now that she’s made her way to Nick’s despite a raging fever, she’d just as soon that he didn’t say anything about her to the police. As it turns out, Nick, whose academic work was supplemented by his wildly improbable secret life as a CIA agent, has a few other people he can call on for help. And he’s going to need every one of them along with his rusty combat skills, because Cole, the freelance mercenary whose crew killed Jay and Carol and Eric in the search for the highly equivocal gifts Annalise brought her uncle, have set their sights on her, and her trail of course leads straight to Nick.

Highly proficient one-dimensional thrills for readers who’d rather do without all those complications.
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