Summer in Missoula, Montana brings sun, summer and heat. For the pack of Zulies based there, it brings dry weather, spontaneous wildfires, and hours of firefighting. Rowan Tripp, a veteran Zulie, knows the ins and outs of these blazes; when her partner, Jim, is killed during one of their missions, she finds her foundation permanently cracked. But when the next summer rolls around, and rookie Gull Curry arrives, Rowan may find that love, like fire, can be bright and burning – and cathartic.
Plot Overview: Flames, Passion and Murder
Rowan Tripp is a strong woman. Physically, she can out run, out climb and out fight any of her teammates. Mentally, she can suffer through the frustrations and fears of fighting fires and come out of it positive, ecstatic even. And emotionally, she is self-sufficient, a woman who lives by her own rules – including the one that says she won’t date other Zulies.
Gull Curry, a newcomer known as “Fast Feet,” is the first man to challenge Rowan’s resolve. He is her match in every way, and when she finally relents to his charm and integrity, she learns that love and fighting can go hand in hand.
Complicating matters, however, is Dolly Brakeman, one of the base’s cooks who claims that Jim, Rowan’s former partner, is the father of her baby. One incident after another points to Dolly sabotaging Rowan and the unit. But when her body is found, and the sabotage continues, Rowan and Gull decide that one of their own might be the culprit.
Criticisms and Compliments
Like many of her standalone novels, Chasing Fire is as educational as it is entertaining. Roberts pulls out description after description of fire – all of which are unique, all of which show no resemblance to the fires of Blue Smoke – and delves deep into the mechanics of fighting fire. Wind, weather, water; all are key elements in firefighting, which is both art and science. This combination of two opposing perspectives, of the right brain and the left brain, of the creative and of the rational, is key to Roberts’s plots. Whether her characters are entering the world of gardening or attempting to fight demons, it is this pairing that allows her determined protagonists to prevail and to grow.
As the descriptions of fire fuel Chasing Fire, so do Roberts’s descriptions of Rowan and Gull allow the novel to grow and develop depth. Rowan and Gull, at least by Roberts’s depictions, are the ideal “Zulies”: hardworking, tough, energetic. In fact, their exercise regime makes the reader tired; their hours on top of hours fighting an inferno makes the reader exhausted; their subsequent return to base to refuel with delicious food and deep sleep makes the reader content. Chasing Fire is, above all, a book of ups and downs, of exertion and rest, both physical and emotional.
Finally, Roberts makes a return to keeping her antagonist’s identity a secret. Unlike the killer in The Search, the murderer-slash-arsonist in Chasing Fire remains as hazy as the smoke from fire. It is only when the Zulies are fighting their worst fire yet, when their guards are down and their bodies are wearing out that Roberts reveals the murderer. It makes for a shocking, sad and satisfying ending. Chasing Fire is a book to pick up now.
Source:
- Roberts, Nora. Chasing Fire. Putnam Adult, 2011 ISBN 9780399157448
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