Author Description

"After ten years as a captive of kidnapper Henry Gemmerle, Joan Crimmins eludes the media and spurns the family who failed to search for her. Instead, she settles in the remote Maine town of Bearkill. But when Gemmerle flees a prison clinic and a 16-year-old Bearkill girl vanishes, Aroostook County Sheriff's deputy Lizzie Snow knows that Joan's painful past has just become another young woman's horrifying future"-- "For Lizzie Snow, the ice and snow of her first punishing North Woods winter are dreadful enough. But near the small town of Bearkill a stubborn forest fire now rages out of control, and as embers swirl dangerously in the smoke-filled air, a teenage girl with a history of running away has dropped out of sight again. The locals and the law both think Tara Wylie is up to her old tricks--until her mother receives a terrifying text message. Equally disturbing: Henry Gemerle--a kidnapper and rapist who once held three girls prisoner for fifteen years--has escaped, and may be lurking in Bearkill. As the fire closes in, Lizzie teams up with her boss Sheriff Cody Chevrier and state cop Dylan Hudson to search for the missing girl and the wily fugitive. But they're blocked by Tara's mother, a frustrating teller of needless lies and keeper of dark, incomprehensible secrets. Following a trail of grisly clues--a bloodstained motel room, a makeshift coffin in a shallow grave--Lizzie is drawn ever closer to the flames in her race to save an innocent and corner a monster. Someone else also wants to find Tara Wylie and Henry Gemerle, though, for reasons that have nothing to do with mercy or justice. And when they all meet, the inferno threatening Bearkill will pale in comparison to the hell that's about to break loose" --