The Fatal Flame

Description

'Spectacular' Gillian Flynn. THE FATAL FLAME is the stunning third novel in Lyndsay Faye's Edgar Award-nominated series, for fans of Andrew Taylor and Antonia Hodgson's The Devil in the Marshalsea. A scarred barman turned copper star, the birth of the NYPD, gangs, murder, brothels and bedlam in the dark underworld of nineteenth-century New York. Timothy Wilde - copper star, tough with a warm heart, learning his craft as a detective. Valentine Wilde - Timothy's gregarious, glamorous, depraved rogue of a brother. Mercy Underhill - The intelligent, creative but unstable love of Timothy's life. Silky Marsh - The beautiful brothel owner whose scheming knows no bounds. Against the gritty backdrop of the notorious Five Points in 1848, Timothy Wilde is drawn yet again into a disturbing mystery, leading him to the heart of the Bowery girls, the original 'factory girls' in downtown Manhattan. Someone is starting fires on the streets of New York and Timothy has to unravel a knot of revenge, murder and blackmail if he's to find out who is behind it all and stop them before the whole city goes up in flames...

Lyndsay Faye is the author of critically acclaimed Dust and Shadow and the Timothy Wilde trilogy: the Edgar Award-nominated The Gods of Gotham, Seven For A Secret and The Fatal Flame. She is featured in Best American Mystery Stories 2010. Faye, a true New Yorker in the sense that she was born elsewhere, lives in Queens with her husband Gabriel.

Reanimates a menacing 19th-century New York - The Sunday Times Cracking yarn - Daily Mail Vibrant - New York Times Lyndsay Faye's command of historical detail is remarkable and her knowledge of human character even more so. I bought into this world and never once had the desire to leave As always in this series, the research is impeccable and the period ambiance dazzling - New York Times [Wilde and Valentine] are two of the most beguiling creatures in the equally crowded world of historical crime fiction . . . The pages teem with characters who are poor in money, but rich in words . . . It's illuminated with flashes of wit and tenderness - Irish Independent