Fireplay

April 21, 2003
This third novel in the series featuring Georgia Skeehan (Flashover) has the FDNY fire marshal investigating a fire in a swank Manhattan restaurant that kills two veteran firefighters. Skeehan initially suspects notorious extortionist Mike McLaughlin. McLaughlin, known as the Freezer (because "that's where his victims always ended up") used to run with an Irish street gang in Hell's Kitchen before going solo. He's long been shaking down the owner of Café Treize and may have torched the restaurant when the owner got too far behind in his payments. But there's a catch: the FDNY can't investigate McLaughlin because he's an informant for the FBI—he helps the Feds spy on a radical environmentalist group called the Green Warriors, who have been contracting out their acts of sabotage to McLaughlin. Skeehan has to go undercover in a joint FDNY-FBI investigation of both the restaurant fire and the Green Warriors, who may have some connection to the fire, and she's torn between her loyalties to the two organizations. Other complications include a firefighter who wants to avenge the death of his two comrades, and the odd behavior of Skeehan's partner, Randy Carter, who appears to be holding out on her as the investigation unfolds. There's also Rick DeAngelo, the estranged father of Skeehan's son, who turns out to be working for the New Jersey mob, and Skeehan's romance with another FDNY marshal Mac Marenko. Chazin once again offers an inside view of the FDNY and visceral descriptions of firefighting, but the complex plot is not as tight as it could be, and the characters—apart from Skeehan herself—are not memorable. Instead of blazing, this third installment merely smolders.