The Fire Baby [Audio CD]

Jim Kelly (Author), Raymond Sawyer (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2006

Summer, 1976. A plane crashes on a farm in the Cambridgeshire fens. Out of the flames walks young Maggie Beck, clutching a baby in her arms. Twenty-seven years later, investigative journalist Philip Dryden - visiting his wife, Laura, in hospital - is witness to Maggie's deathbed confession. But some secrets are best kept secret, and what started out for Dryden as a small and curious story about the only survivor of an almost-forgotten plane crash soon escalates into a full-blown murder investigation. And while Dryden is wondering what other secrets Maggie carried, his semi-conscious wife is trying to tell him something that might just save his life...

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

What's not to like about a crime novel that incorporates the illegal smuggling of immigrants, trafficking in low-grade porn, suggestions of incest, a deathbed confession, an airplane disaster, and crucial clues supplied by a coma patient? All of that, plus threats directed against the journalist determined to get to the bottom of this sordid nightmare.

Returning to England's Cambridgeshire Fens district, the setting for his debut novel, The Water Clock, Jim Kelly introduces us, in The Fire Baby, to Maggie Beck, who as a teenager in 1976 was one of only two survivors of a U.S. Air Force transporter crash outside the small town of Ely. Her farmer parents and her 13-day-old son on the ground were among the dozen people killed, while the other person left alive was Lyndon Koskinski, the newborn child of an American flyer from Texas, whom Maggie carried out of the flames. At least, that's how the tale was reported. But now, as Maggie Beck lies dying of cancer in an Ely hospital room, she's tape-recording a different story for her teacher daughter, Estelle, 25, and Koskinski, now a 27-year-old Air Force pilot come for one last visit with the woman who'd saved him so long ago--a story that will change minds and hearts, alike. On hand to watch this developing crisis is Philip Dryden, the cowardly and guilt-plagued newspaperman from Clock, whose former soap star wife, Laura--comatose ever since a car accident four years before--is Maggie's roommate. But Dryden also has his hands full inquiring about a missing barmaid, the scandalous use of World War II-era military sites, and the often cruel importation of foreign laborers. When these investigative threads start tangling about him, Dryden will need all the help he can get, not only from his unsociable driver, "Humph" Holt ("the only cabbie in Britain with a two-door taxi: a triumph of indifference over reality"), but from Laura, whose rudimentary efforts at communication may offer the solution to more than one puzzle.

It's no small accomplishment that Kelly keeps his myriad subplots straight, and drives them all toward a logical collision at The Fire Baby's climax. The visceral torments faced by several characters are credible, and though there's a twist of undue convenience at book's end, the shattering of lives and loves, and the tragic consequences of too many secrets kept are all skillfully handled. Kelly leaves readers with high expectations for his third elemental mystery. --J. Kingston Pierce --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. British author Kelly proves that his outstanding mystery debut, The Water Clock (2003), was no fluke in this gripping sequel. When his mother's old caretaker makes a startling deathbed confession, Cambridgeshire reporter Philip Dryden finds himself revisiting a decades-old tragedy—a fatal U.S. Air Force crash that claimed many lives, including a weeks-old infant. That probe may be intertwined with several others—into an illegal immigrant smuggling ring, a pornography and date-rape racket, and several murders. Assisted by a motley assortment of friends and allies, and, surprisingly, by his wife, who's been in a coma but has begun to communicate haltingly by spelling out words letter by letter, Dryden plausibly uncovers the dark truths behind the crimes. Kelly excels at portraying shattered lives with great insight and sensitivity; this book has several heartbreaking passages, including a description of a father's wrenching identification of his son's corpse. The entire story is framed by tragic ironies, and the author's craft at wedding plot and character will remind many of British masters of psychological whodunits such as Minette Walters and Ruth Rendell. While the ending suggests that Dryden's sleuthing days are over, there's every reason to hope for new Kelly creations that will explore basic human emotions and struggles within a crime framework.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Isis Audio; Unabridged edition (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753124998
• ISBN-13: 978-0753124994
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,453,821 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comatose wife helps with deathbed mystery, April 5, 2005

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fire Baby (Hardcover)

A comatose wife as assistant crime solver? It sounds like the ultimate gimmick, but in British author Kelly's skillful hands Laura Dryden's sporadic struggles to communicate are integral to the genesis and development of this quirky, unusual series.

A former soap opera star, Laura was left in a coma after a car accident on the Cambridgeshire Fens four years earlier. Her husband Philip left his high-powered Fleet Street job to become star reporter for the local weekly and sit by her hospital bed.

This second outing (after "The Water Clock") finds Philip at his wife's bedside on a summer day. "The figure on the bed didn't move. Its immobility was a constant in his life, like the heat of that summer, and equally oppressive." Sharing his wife's room is a local woman, Maggie Beck, who, back in 1977, recovering from the death of her parents and son, had helped Philip's newly widowed mother.

Maggie's parents and baby had been killed by the crash of a US military plane. Ironically, Maggie had rescued an American infant thrown free of the wreckage. Now dying, Maggie needs Philip's help to share a deathbed secret.

Meanwhile, as Philip attempts to track down Maggie's daughter and her American traveling companion, a man is dying of thirst, tethered in a concrete bunker, a glass of water left just beyond his reach. And a young barmaid disappears after being drugged and raped, also in a bunker, according to the pornographic photographs of her making the rounds. And a group of illegal African immigrants suffer the summer's hellish heat in the back of a locked truck container.

While Kelly tracks these story lines from various points of view, it's up to Philip to follow the leads and discover each victim's fate, with a bit of help from friends like a bird-watching police detective and an alcoholic American major, both hanging on for retirement. Then there's Humph, Philip's silent, misanthropic driver, and Laura, tapping out an occasional cryptic message between reams of gibberish.

Kelly seems equally at home with heart-shattering pain and dark, nimble humor. Philip is cynical, kind, heart sore and responsible. Prone to private self-criticisms, his bravest acts are motivated by the fear of being discovered a coward. Kelly's writing is wry and evocative and full of sharp insights and humane sensitivity. Atmospheric and insightful, this is a standout series.

Portsmouth Herald, March 13

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and mysterious Fens, March 3, 2005

By 

HenderHouse (Libertyville, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fire Baby (Hardcover)

England's Fen country has always seemed compelling and mysterious to me ... which is why I picked up Jim Kelly's first mystery THE WATER CLOCK. The protagonist, reporter Philip Dryden, was also so compelling that I went right to Kelly's second mystery, THE FIRE BABY. Once again, Kelly weaves a story involving disparate characters acting and reacting badly over decades into a satisfying mystery.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars exciting thriller, October 31, 2004

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fire Baby (Hardcover)

Every night for the past four years, Weekly Crow reporter Philip Dryden visits his comatose spouse Laura at Ely's Tower Hospital. Laura's current roommate, cancer victim Maggie Beck expects to die shortly. She asks Philip to carry out a death wish favor. She has made tapes of her memories especially concentrating on a 1976 plane crash at the US air base in Mildenhall in which the dying woman provides a different report than the official one. Maggie also furbishes a spin on her daughter's marriage. She wants Philip to deliver her last words to her daughter.

As Laura begins to awaken from her coma, she overhears much of what Maggie says. She struggles to warn her spouse that he could be in danger, but she is not fully conscious yet. Meanwhile Philip uncovers two homicides that he believes ties back to Maggie's death bed wish. As he investigates further someone tries to kill him. Only Laura, if she can communicate, can tell him the truth that might save his life.

This exciting thriller combines soap opera elements with a tense journalist investigation that grips the reader mostly because the audience will like and admire Philip and hope that Laura recovers in time to warn him. The story line is at its best when Philip is investigating Maggie's contention and other underbelly stories. When the tale shifts to the hospital scenes the plot loses momentum but adds depth to the beleaguered hero. THE FIRE BABY is a terrific opening novel that hopefully has sequels with a healing Laura at Philip's side.

Harriet Klausner