Firetrap A Novel of Suspense

Ballantine Books. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 2006. Hardcover. 0345462920 . 1.2 x 9.3 x 6.1 Inches; 368 pages; No one writes with the power, authority, and poetry that Earl Emerson has demonstrated in his action-packed novels about fire and the people who make their living fighting it. In Firetrap, Trey Brown is a man tormented by race, by family, and now by a political firestorm that has erupted because fourteen people died in an illegal Seattle nightclub . . . and someone must take the fall.<br><br>Captain Trey Brown is a black man in a Seattle fire department where the color of his skin keeps him largely on the outside looking in. As a child, Trey was adopted by a white family whose children were bred for wealth and power&#8211;but now Trey simply does his job, rides his Harley, and lives in bitter solitude. Then the Z-Club goes up in flames, killing more than a dozen people, all of them black, and the city's African American community demands to know: Did these people die because of their skin color?<br><br>Jamie Estevez, the beautiful, ambitious reporter who becomes Trey's partner in the investigation, is everything Trey is not. Outgoing and gregarious, she tries to bring the lone-wolf fireman back into the world. But as their relationship heats up, Trey is forced to relive a painful episode from his past, when he was accused of a horrible crime and shunned by his adoptive parents. Suddenly, two mysteries&#8211;one of passion and family, the other of fire and murder&#8211;are unraveling around Trey. But so is everything he has done to protect himself. . . .<br><br>Firetrap is vintage Earl Emerson: a gritty, emotionally charged novel set in a world of camaraderie and urban chaos, where one man has been a hero, a villain, and a victim&#8211;and hasn&#8217;t even faced the deadliest danger yet. .