Five Fires

Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of What the Dead Know, The Most Dangerous Thing, and most recently, After I’m Gone, delivers a suspenseful short story with an unexpected twist in her Byliner Original, Five Fires. Readers are calling it “chilling, and not to be missed,” and “up to her usual high standard.” Everyone in small-town Belleville is talking about a series of mysterious fires disrupting the typically tranquil summer. The authorities attribute them to heat lightning, but some Belleville residents are not so sure… High-school student, Beth, like everyone else in Belleville, has been following the fires – she has plenty of time between her monotonous day job at the deli and solitary nights at home while her mom works late. The fires aren’t the only unusual occurrence – Beth’s old friend Tara, who left town the year before after a scandal, returns with no real explanation. Circumstances only get stranger when Beth unwittingly discovers clues as to what – or who – is the cause of the fires. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working fulltime and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan. In 2001 she left daily journalism to focus on her career as a novelist. Now a New York Times bestselling author, her work has been awarded the Edgar, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association. Her most recent novel, After I’m Gone, a thriller-mystery with an unusual love triangle, is now out in paperback. Laura’s next novel, Hush Hush, will be published in February 2015.