Synopsis
When arson investigator Billy Nightingale and his brother-in-law, Officer Sebastian Bly, are called in to investigate a tragic house fire that killed two young children, they find much more than charred wood and melted plastic. Suspicious details at the fire scene - and the discovery of a rather unusual baby hiding underneath the porch - put Billy and Sebastian on the trail of a murderous mother while Sebastian and his wife, Annie, raise baby Marmalade without revealing her dangerous and frightening past.
Baby Marmalade grows up to be a promising young ballerina - her ambitions fueled in part by the fictional past that Sebastian and Annie have invented for her. But the truth threatens this happy family as Marmalade's birth mother returns to finish what she started.
Shelly Reuben, a real-life fire investigator in New York City, has written not only a gripping and entertaining crime novel, but she has also created a sensitive, warm, and unique exploration of the deeper issues of what defines a family and an individual.
Library Journal
Arson investigator Billy Nightingale rescues a baby from a burned-out house where two children are found dead. But though Billy and his wife raise little Meredith without knowledge of her past, everything goes up in smoke when Meredith's biological mom returns-evidently ready to kill again. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.