Release Date: October 20th 2015
Pages: 370
Received from publicist for review
Elizabeth Martin has spent years of her life in the job of fighting wild fires, on many far away locations. but afterwards she has settled for a quieter life with her husband Ben. Her previous job, she has now switched to being an arson investigator, has had a huge impact on her marriage with Ben, and their move to a quieter life in Nelson, on the foot of the Rockies, didn't help them and they are heading to a divorce.
Things in Nelson take a dramatic turn as a fire that seems to have started in an older man’s fire pit turns into an raging wild fire. That older man, John Phillips, loses everything in the fire and has no family to help.
Elizabeth's ex best friend Mindy, the second narrator of the book, starts a project to help John Philips Mindy's life is also has known better times; she has lost grip on her husband and her teenage son Angus. When rumors start that a group of teenagers, including Angus, are linked to the fire, and soon it becomes clear that Elizabeth and Mindy need each other to help each other out to find the answers of the cause of the fire and to navigate their lives.
I had mixed feelings about Smoke. Let's start with the good points: The characters are nice: Elizabeth is the character that is the most interesting of the two, the chapters alternate between Elizabeth and Mindy. But I wondered though why Elizabeth's chapter's where written in the first person style and Mindy's in the third. As a reader found that a bit odd and it would read more fluent if Mindy's chapters where in the same style as those of Elizabeth.
he story is very mysterious, like a dark thriller. Till the end of you book you wonder who started the fire. And that's is also the weak point, because the author gives to clues who could have done it: Angus or Mr. Philips. I will keep it in the middle who it was, but somehow the outcome was a bit confusing.
I have read other novel's by Catherine McKenzie before so I was curious for Smoke. I didn't like it as much though as I hoped to do beforehand.
