Science & Technology - Fiction, Other Fantasy Fiction Categories, Detective Fiction, Crimes - Fiction, Women Detectives - Fiction, Occupations - Fiction, Other Mystery Categories
Log in to track your reading progress.
Overview
When Matthew Fielding, the four-year-old son of a San Diego telecommunications mogul, turns up missing, the psychic skills of P.I. Elizabeth Chase are requested. The stakes are raised soon after Elizabeth begins her investigation when a wildfire breaks out in Rancho Santa Fe, the secluded community where Matthew and his family-and Elizabeth's own parents-live. Aided and abetted by the Santa Ana winds, flames rage out of control, consuming thousands of acres and dozens of homes.
Before the ashes can be cleared away, another fire blazes through everything in its path. Are the kidnapper and arsonist one and the same? Will Elizabeth be able to find the clues she needs in the dying embers around her? It's a race against time itself as man and nature combine to wreak destruction on Elizabeth's community and keep a little boy lost forever.
In the fifth installment of a series Sue Grafton referred to as "a natural...and a supernatural as well," Martha C. Lawrence once again combines the quirky and the familiar as her smart, resilient and endearing heroine uses her psychic ability and incomparable detecting skills to hunt down a killer.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Private investigator Elizabeth Chase puts her psychic talents to the ultimate test, as man and nature threaten to keep a child lost forever.Publishers Weekly
In her fifth astrological adventure (after 2000's Pisces Rising), psychic PI Elizabeth Chase faces an unusual and riveting mystery that will give pause to even the most ardent skeptics. When San Diego telecommunications mogul Frank Fielding's four-year-old son, Matthew, disappears, the Fieldings ask detective Bruce Loebman to call in Elizabeth for help. But before the unconventional sleuth, whom Loebman reluctantly consults, has a chance to focus on the case, a wildfire, fueled by the Santa Ana winds, ravages the exclusive community where the Fieldings live, destroying property and thousands of acres of land. When another fire breaks out, she discovers that it's the work of an arsonist who may also be Matthew's kidnapper. Dismissed by doubting Thomases, Elizabeth steps up her own investigation to find the little boy before it's too late. Her two Ph.D.s from Stanford and her prior psychic successes aren't necessary to make her a plausible, likable heroine, but they don't hurt. Her work with her shaman-mentor, the Luiseno Indian Sequoia, only adds to her credibility, as he teaches her to harness power from the natural world around her that the author describes so well. Lawrence effectively combines the earthly and the inexplicable in this fascinating page-turner, and its dramatic ending will delight committed fans as well as attract new ones. (Sept. 17) FYI: Lawrence's work has been nominated for Edgar, Agatha and Anthony awards. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
Psychic private eye Elizabeth Chase employs her particular skills to locate a kidnapped four-year-old San Diego boy and an arsonist responsible for a nearby terrible wildfire. Could arsonist and kidnapper be one and the same? A fine series. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
The hot Santa Ana winds blow a constant background to Pyschic Investigator Elizabeth Chase's latest case (Pisces Rising, 2000, etc.). Matthew Fielding, four-year-old son of wealthy high-tech mogul Franklin Fielding, has been kidnapped from their Rancho Santa Fe home, next door to Elizabeth's parents' house. Faced with no clues and no ransom note, the cops call in Elizabeth. In the Fieldings' house, she smells smoke, although there is ostensibly no fire. Within hours, though, a wildfire is raging through Rancho Santa Fe. Racing to help her parents, Elizabeth takes TV reporter Randy Twain into the inferno to save his camerawoman, who was nearly overcome while filming the Fieldings' incineration in their Jaguar. Elizabeth's parents and their home survive the blaze, but Matthew, now an orphan, is still missing. Meanwhile, the fire department discovers that although the Santa Anas fanned the flames, an arsonist is responsible for exploding the Fieldings' propane tank. Convinced Matthew is still alive, Elizabeth investigates Franklin Fielding's family, including the childless sister he named Matthew's guardian, and Starcom, his giant telecommunications company. With unsolicited help from reporter Twain, she uncovers executives inflamed by rivalries and protesters incensed by environmental issues. Sifting through the ashes of more arson, and battered by the unrelenting Santa Anas, Elizabeth must trust a clairvoyant vision to find Matthew-and her mother's strength to save her from the arsonist. Complemented by more mundane detective work, Chase's psychic intuition fits right into the apocalyptic southern California landscape. Lawrence jazzes up traditional hard-boiled hunches with New Ageparapsychology to deliver old-fashioned excitement.From the Publisher
"Save a spot on the bestseller list for Martha Lawrence."—Sue Grafton
"Lawrence effectively combines the earthly and the inexplicable in this fascinating page-turner, and its dramatic ending will delight committed fans as well as attract new ones."—Publishers Weekly
"Martha C. Lawrence makes psychic investigator Elizabeth Chase immensely appealing."—Diane Mott Davidson
Book Details
Published
April 1, 2007
Publisher
St. Martin's Press
Pages
272
ISBN
9781429976749