Customer Reviews

The Smoke Room: A Novel of Suspense

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Some mistakes cost you nothing, while others may cost you everything. Rookie firefighter Jason Gum commits an error in the latter category when he misses a call because he's in the middle of a sexual encounter with Iola Pederson, an older married woman he just met, in the weight room of the firehouse. Because two fellow firefighters help him conceal his indiscretion, he feels obligated to turn a blind eye to their activities when they subsequently violate department policy by removing three garbage bags full of bearer bonds from the scene of another call where they discover the body of an old man. Gum learns the painful truth that lies often breed more lies, and that some lies can lead to murder.

The Shamus Award winning author of the Thomas Black detective series (The Portland Laugher is a high point in that eleven book saga), Emerson has in the last few years penned several novels set in the world of firefighting, The Smoke Room being his fourth such effort. As filtered through the perceptions of the naive yet oddly appealing Jason Gum, Emerson's latest plunges readers into that dangerous world, into a perilous milieu where you're as likely to be killed by comrades as by the dangers inherent in firefighting. Scarily authentic and utterly captivating, full of numerous twists and turns, The Smoke Room is an engrossing tale of deceit and danger, cowardice and courage, easily one of the most compelling books you'll encounter this year.

I've been an unabashed fan of Earl Emerson's books for several years, and I am again (constantly!) surprised by how deftly he weaves humor and pathos together with suspense and thrills. His writing is economical, unflinching, and with each new book he finds ways to challenge his own talent. In the past he's given us street-smart heroes, womanizers, heroes troubled by their pasts, but this time he gives us a genuine nice guy in Jason Gum, a guy with a normal amount of talent, brains and ambition, but one with a fatal flaw: Timidity. One moment, one tiny moment, one small and what should be inconsequential decision to try to avoid "getting in trouble" and his world begins to spiral out of control. Gum makes that decision over and over again, as "getting in trouble" assumes larger and more life-threatening proportions with each error in judgment until he finds himself so tightly painted into a corner that all the turpentine in the world would not give him a way out. In this book, as in his more recent outings, Emerson takes us on a journey of self-discovery along with Gum, where we can empathize with his mistakes, knowing it would be all too easy to fall into the same traps as Gum given the same pressures and temptations he faced. And with all of this, the book is laden with action and vivid imagery. Hollywood surely ought to make a film of this book.

Jason Gum is a rookie firefighter with a rocky childhood. He is finds his place in Engine Company 29, when a beautiful woman walks into his life. His hormones result in his missing a fire call and he finds himself at the mercy of two fellow firefighters that are aware of his slip-up.

When these two firemen acquire a fortune in bearer bonds, Jason becomes an unwilling accomplice to their crimes. When actions of these men grow even darker, Jason's conscience cannot allow him to keep silent. He finds himself fighting to do the right thing while keeping the job he loves.

The Smoke Room begins with a pig falling from 11000 feet into a woman's house. You have to like any author that can come up with that. The Smoke Room features humor that I have not seen previously from the author. Emerson delivers a solid suspenseful page-turner. If you are looking for a summer thriller, you can't go wrong with this one.

Twenty-four years old Seattle firefighter Jason Gum and others from Engine 29 race to the scene of what has been described as an explosion at the home shared by forty something Iola Pederson and her daddy. Jason helps get Iola out of the house while daddy had already evacuated the house. Investigators conclude that the "bomb" was an award winning hog "jumping" from a plane at an estimated 11,000 feet.

Three weeks later Iola visits the fire station to personally thank Jason for her rescue. She seduces him in the back room while his team goes out on a fire call without him. His mate Ted Tronstad leaves behind Gum's gear so that the firefighter can arrive on his own and thus lesson the dereliction of duty penalty. Ironically Gum becomes a hero though the couple he rescues fails to survive. Not long afterward, Tronstad has sacks filled with bearer bonds that he pulled from a fire. Tronstad, driver Robert Johnson, and Gum argue when Captain Sears catches them with the loot and threatens to expose them. Now they must rid themselves of Sears, but Johnson hesitates while Gum wants no part of the bonds except Tronstad blackmails him into either participating or at least remaining silent.

THE SMOKE ROOM is an exhilarating suspense thriller that twists and turns in ways readers will never suspect until the spin occurs as Jason understands but seems to never learn that his using the wrong head is destroying his morals. Readers will wonder what the key firefighting characters and Iola will do next and how likable Gum, who narrates the tale, will extract himself from his spiraling out of control woes. Earl Emerson provides the audience with a five alarm winner.

Harriet Klausner

With a smashing beginning, literally, Emerson has written a very effective tale of a young man whose passivity costs others their lives and nearly destroys his own. At the same time, he is caring and heroic and what he lacks in decisiveness, he makes up for in convection. Jason is a fully drawn, very human character, and it's interesting watching his growth. A diverse supporting cast, and good dialogue and suspense enhance the story, which is also a study of the power of greed. I stopped reading Emerson for a while, as I wanted him to give me more from his writing. This definitively puts him back on my author list.

Earl Emerson has been around for a while, apparently, writing both a detective series and several stand-alone novels that revolve around the world of firefighters in Seattle. Which isn't surprising, since Mr. Emerson IS a firefighter in Seattle. I hadn't heard of him before til I picked this book up off the dollar stack at the used book store. I read the first few pages and was thoroughly hooked. But how can you go wrong with a book that begins with a pig falling out of an airplane into a house?

The Smoke Room is one part Elmore Leonard, one part Carl Hiaasen, and maybe a dash of James Cain, telling the story of naive firefighter Jason Gum, and the royal mess he ends up in, starting with the night of the fateful pig drop. That night he meets a very seductive older woman, whose shenanigans with him lead him to make a mistake that fellow firefighters on his crew cover for him. So he feels he owes them when one of those firefighters drags him into a scheme involving stolen bearer bonds "liberated" from the scene of a dead body call. Gum wants no part of the stolen bonds but also doesn't want to rat out his buddies. But as he dithers, others begin to suspect the scheme and suddenly there's a body count involved. How can he save his career, his butt from prison, and possibly his life from his increasingly ruthless co-workers?

The caper quality and the ever-racheting suspense is what brings Elmore Leonard to mind; the frequent humor in both ridiculous situations and the interplay between the characters is what reminded me of Hiaasen. However, the details of fires and firefighting that become an integral part of the story are unique to Emerson, and one of the things that made this book much better than average. He knows how to provide inside detail and at the same time make the calculations and considerations of a fire scene understandable to a lay reader.

I could not put this book down. Sometimes I wanted to hug and comfort Jason Gum, sometimes I wanted to shake him for his obtuseness, but I had to know what happens to him in the end, even if it meant losing sleep. Well worth checking out.

I found another Emerson book, Pyro, on the same discount stack and it is next in my to-be-read pile!

I just started reading Earl Emerson's books, which involve Firefighters and I became immediately hooked. His books are real page turners, with lots of plot twists. The characters are realistic with their human flaws. Earl Emerson's books are well written and entertaining and I enjoy the fact he always has a Female Firefighter in them :)

This book is interesting and entertaining from the first sentence to the last. It's a pleasure to read something so cleverly plotted, so well characterized and so nuanced with ethical dilemmas and humility. Most of all, it is simply damn enjoyable--and a very fast read. This is my first exposure to Earl Emerson, but it sure isn't going to be the last.

I have been an Emerson fan for years. I loved his Mac Fontana series and have read several of his stand-alone fire thrillers. This is, in my opinion, the best yet. I'm a firefighter myself and I have worked with people like Jason Gum, Ted Tronstad and the rest of the crew -- the good, the incompetent, the timid, the brave and the mad, bad and dangerous. What I like about this story is that it's not only a damned good story but Jason is such a well drawn character. If you ever wondered what it was like to fight a fire, read Emerson. It's all there.