Fire With Fire
By: Candice Fox
Narrator: Jay Aaseng
Macmillan Audio
ISBN: 9781250875969
Publisher: Forge Books
Publication Date: 05/09/2023
Format: Other
My Rating: 5 Stars (ARC)
Candice Fox's Fire with Fire is a non-stop, gripping thriller from "a bright new star in crime fiction."
—James Patterson
A pair of desperate parents.
A man on the run.
A rookie cop.
Four people with everything on the line.
What will be left in the ashes of the next 24 hours?
Following their daughter's mysterious disappearance, Ryan and Elsie Delaney have taken the LAPD forensic lab hostage, and have given law enforcement an ultimatum: Find their daughter, Tilly, or they will destroy all the evidence they can find to other cold cases.
Detective Charlie Hoskins has been undercover in a deadly motorcycle gang for five years. With his cover blown, he has no choice but to find Tilly himself or lose everything he's worked for as the lab burns.
Lynette Lamb was a police officer -- until yesterday when she was fired before her first beat. Figuring out what happened to Tilly is her one and only chance at rejoining the career she's prepared her whole life for.
Hoskins and Lamb will have to team up to solve this cold case and will have to move fast -- before the situation explodes.
Buy the Book
#FireWithFire
My Review
The Aussie Queen of Crime fiction, bestselling author Candice Fox (a favorite author), returns following The Chase with her latest and one of her best, FIRE WITH FIRE —a high adrenaline riveting crime thriller— parents of a missing child take matters into their own hands, issuing an ultimatum to LA law enforcement.
Justice and Revenge. Tick Tock.
A pair of desperate parents.
A man on the run.
A rookie cop.
Four people with everything on the line.
What will be left in the ashes of the next 24 hours?
Ryan and Elsie Delaney, parents of their young daughter, five-year-old Tilly that had disappeared two years ago. Law enforcement suspects she drowned on the Santa Monica beach. However, her body had never been recovered. The parents demand closure. They feel the LAPD had not tried hard enough and are now desperate.
No BODY. No CLOSURE.
Their pleas have not yielded anything from the authorities. Now, desperate, the parents have taken three hostages at the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center and have given LAPD an ultimatum.
The cops think the parents are lunatics for holding them hostage, but they are serious. There are many critical samples with four decades of work in the lab.
With careful planning, they are on the ground floor in the forensic biology and DNA lab. They have secured all doors. They are using CCTV to track movements. They cannot cut the power due to the temperature-controlled sample storage. They have 24 hrs. The clock is ticking.
If Tilly isn't located within the next 24 hours, they will destroy all the unprocessed evidence samples of other cold cases. One sample from the lab every two hours until their daughter is found. Everything is going up in FLAMES.
Was she abducted? A cover-up, or what? She was not a strong swimmer. A swimsuit disappeared from the evidence before being tested. She was afraid of the big waves.
But if the cops said drowning, they could close the case in ten days. But an abduction was a much longer case with task forces, media, and pressure. Soloversas was a month out from retirement. Were they too lazy in the investigation? This is not good.
A lot of blame is being passed around, and they might kill five people in the lab, plus all the LAPD's case evidence.
The parents do not want to accept drowning as a verdict. Now they are blackmailing the LAPD into reopening her case while at the same time seeking vengeance by threatening to destroy key evidence in other critical cold cases. They are now kidnappers and terrorists.
Detective Charlie Hoskins (Hoss-seasoned) and Lynette Lamb (Lamb Chop-rookie) are on the case. Both have baggage and are a blast together! Almost like a father/daughter team.- they are highly motivated!
Ironically, a swimmer is saving a drowning man. That man is an undercover cop, Charlie, and has been left for dead. Meet Lynette, only 21, a newly graduated police recruit responsible for blowing his cover.
Detective Charlie Hoskins has been undercover in a deadly motorcycle gang for five years. With his cover blown, he has no choice but to find Tilly himself or lose everything he's worked for as the lab burns.
Lynette Lamb was a police officer—until yesterday when she was fired before her first beat. Figuring out what happened to Tilly is her only chance at rejoining the career she's prepared her whole life for. Will Charlie help her get back into the LAPD? She has to prove herself.
What if this tactic makes all other victim families try the same hostage situation? They cannot give in to their demands.
However, Hoss and Lamb start their own investigation. They must re-interview the two witnesses and all the sex offenders and pedophiles in the area. But most of the time most child abduction cases, it's not a stranger but a family member of someone the child knows.
Charlie and Lamb's investigation parallels the drama in the crime lab— told through the eyes of one of the lab's directors who's being held hostage and Charlie's boss, Chief of Police Saskia Ferboden.
This is one INTENSE book! Action-packed, Hoss and Lamb are a total riot! As usual, this intricately woven multi-layered complex investigation fully displays Fox's mad skills. There are so many thrilling parts from Charlie's former gang buddies wanting revenge and Lamb trying desperately to keep up with her older cynical partner.
All the while, they are trying to find a girl who went missing two years ago and a ticking time bomb. No pressure, right?
No one does crime thrillers better! Fox's writing and the suspense, riveting. The character development of especially the two leads, Hoss and Lamb, is excellent as the author cleverly unravels their past so readers can get an inside glimpse into these complex personalities. Charlie's past undercover work, his family, and Lynette, young, book smart more than street smart, but she has excellent instincts.
One of my favorites! I hope we see more of Hoskins and Lamb and a new series. Do not miss this one.
If you have read not Candice Fox, US fans, I highly recommend it. I discovered her in 2014 when I started my blog with her Hades: Archer and Bennett series, and I have been an avid fan since. Of course, she also co-writes with James Patterson and all kinds of hit bestsellers.
Trust me, read one Candice Fox book, and you will become a Foxfan!
In the US, if you like Karin Slaughter and Michael Connelly, you will enjoy Candice Fox's crime thrillers and readers who like thoughtful, intelligent written thrillers with strong cop procedurals and forensics.
FIRE WITH FIRE features a stunning cover, reflecting the overall book and a fitting title. Well- done!
A special thanks to #ForgeBooks for a gifted e-ARC via #NetGalley for review purposes. I also purchased the audiobook narrated by Jay Aaseng for a gripping, engaging performance.
@JudithDCollins |#JDCMustReadBooks
Pub Date: May 9, 2023
My Rating: 5 🌟 STARS
May 2023 Must-Read Books
MOVIE:
If you have not seen the movie Troppo, based on Candice's Crimson Lake novel, check out the trailer. Season One is available on Amazon Prime Video, Freeve Original.
Amanda Pharrell, an eccentric private investigator with a disturbing criminal past, recruits disgraced ex-cop Ted Conkaffey, to help her solve her first real case: the disappearance of a Korean family man and tech pioneer. Troppo is based on the best-selling novel, 'Crimson Lake,' by Candice Fox. The novel was also bloody good!
About the Author
Hades, Candice Fox’s first novel, won the Ned Kelly Award for best debut in 2014 from the Australian Crime Writers Association. The sequel, Eden, won the Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel in 2015, making Candice only the second author to win these accolades back-to-back. She is also the author of the bestselling Fall, Crimson Lake and Redemption Point, all shortlisted for Ned Kelly and Davitt Awards.
In 2015 Candice began collaborating with James Patterson. Their first novel together, Never Never, set in the vast Australian outback, was a huge bestseller in Australia and went straight to number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in the US and also to the top of the charts in the UK. Since then they have written Black & Blue, Fifty Fifty, Liar Liar, Hush Hush in the Harriet Blue series. Her books are printed in fifteen languages.
Born in 1985, Candice is the middle child of a large, eccentric family from Sydney’s western suburbs composed of half-, adopted and pseudo siblings. The daughter of an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice spent her childhood listening around corners to tales of violence, madness and evil from the cops and childcare authorities who frequented her home.
Bankstown born and bred, she failed to conform to military life in a brief stint as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. At twenty, she turned her hand to academia, and taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees. She is a crafter, animal-lover and wine drinker living in Sydney.
The best way to hear Candice’s story is in her own words. Listen to some of her best tales on the podcasts. WEBSITE
