Customer Reviews

The Fire-Raiser

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As a mother who screens everything her 11-year-old daughter reads, I discovered Maurice Gee rather by accident: I rented "Under the Mountain", a movie based on his book of the same name, and was intrigued by this writer from New Zealand. The book, "The Fire Raiser", however, is nothing like that movie or the book that movie is based on. What "The Fire Raiser" does have is a fresh view of many familiar topics common in middle school in the United States, including prejudice and racism: one of the most vilified victims in this New Zealand town is a piano-teacher of German descent, and the motives of the fire-raiser himself are not as clear-cut as first thought. The book, listed as a middle-school book, is a little more adult and darker than most middle-school books - a little Stephen King-ish, maybe. The style of the writer is rather bare-bones and to-the-point, and so, rather than visualizing the gorgeous Hobbit green of New Zealand as I was reading the book, I found myself rather choked and oppressed. Given the subject matter of "The Fire Raiser", it was highly effective! I think it was a refreshing change from the usual kids-get-bad-person-and-high-five-each-other kind of book had the story been written by an American or British writer, but I don't see myself stocking up out home library with similar works! I thought it would be a good experience for said daughter to read a well-written book that may make her a bit uncomfortable, and I think that goal was met. In said daughter's words:

"The book, `The Fire Raiser' by Maurice Gee is a gripping tale of suspense, mystery and madness in a small town in New Zealand during the `war-shadowed' year of 1915.

"When Kitty Wix is knocked over by a man running away from the fire in the stables, she and her friend, Irene, suspect that it is crazy Mr. Marwick who is to blame for pushing her down and almost killing the horses by starting the fire. When Kitty's brother, Noel, and his pal, Phil, find a gasoline can in the river by the Marwick place, they have their suspicions, too. So, reluctantly, they join forces as they face the fire raiser.

"I would recommend this book to anyone who loves mystery filled with madness. To them, I am sure that this will see like a five shiny-gold-star book. However, I did not like the mad characters in this book and so I would only give it four stars."

The Fire-Raiser, by Maurice Gee, was originally published in New Zealand in 1986, and has just been reissued in paperback in the U.S. by Houghton Mifflin. It's a suspense story, set during World War I in a small town in New Zealand. A "fire-raiser" has been burning down empty buildings. As the story begins, the arsonist is looking to graduate to burning buildings containing living creatures. Four local children figure out who the criminal is, but have trouble convincing the authorities, and find themselves in danger. A caring teacher, Mr. "Clippy" Hedges, tries to help the kids, especially one boy who is homeless. Clippy is a bit distracted, however, because the woman he loves, a German expatriate who teaches piano, is in danger, too. Anti-German fever runs high in the town, stoked by a bombastic politician, and Frau Stauffel becomes a convenient target.

I had some trouble getting into this book at first, but soon became gripped by the story, especially by the plight of Frau Stauffel. She had so little recourse - a German woman, living in New Zealand, with no family to care for her, as xenophobia ran amok. (Post 9-11 treatment of Muslims shows the timelessness of this storyline.) Fortunately the piano teacher had Mr. Hedges, and the four plucky children, to protect her.

I enjoyed the dynamics of the relationships between the four children, two working class siblings (the baker's children), the pampered but plucky daughter of the mayor, and the Huck Finn-like Phil, eking out a parentless existence. And I agree with the Kirkus Review quoted on the back cover that it "brings an entire community vividly and believably to life". We see the town politics and class struggles, but also the people working together to fight the arsonist's fires and to raise money for the Belgian Relief Fund. The children are in a patriotic play together, forced into it by a bossy teacher of the breed that keeps small towns running. Everyone in town attends, even the arsonist.

My only quibble with the book is that I found that the omniscient narration (from which the reader could also see the arsonist's perspective), kept the children a bit at a distance. At times this felt like a novel written for adults that happened to feature some children, rather than a book written for children. But overall it's a well-written story, and a window into early World War I New Zealand. The madness of the arsonist, the caring by Mr. Hedges for his students and Frau Stauffel, the rivalry of the children, and the violent behavior of the town's young men, are all, for better or worse, timeless. Recommended for middle grade fans of historical fiction and atmospheric mysteries (such as A Drowned Maiden's Hair or the Enola Holmes mysteries), and for adult readers of British mysteries.

This book review was originally published on my blog, Jen Robinson's Book Page, on June 8, 2007.

The television series honoured the book as a salute to fine storytelling. Mystery, mayhem, humour and lessons to be learned from the setting whether it is small town New Zealand in the past or small town somewhere else in the present... a childhood adventure with plenty of thrills for young readers. Perfect bedtime serial!