The Wildfire Season: A Novel [Paperback]

Andrew Pyper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2008

After half his body was burned in a forest fire, Miles McEwan left his life behind and moved to the most remote place he could find, a little village in the Yukon called Ross River. He's sitting at his usual spot in the town's one bar as two life-changing forces approach from opposite sides: one is a forest fire, set with the flick of a match; the other is his former girlfriend, who after five years of searching has tracked him down, bringing with her a daughter Miles didn't know he had. As head of the town's firefighters, Miles must confront the fire, find a killer, and protect his newfound family. Andrew Pyper's vivid, panoramic story encompasses the vast wilderness of the Yukon, as malevolent forces of nature and man converge on Ross River, in this "brilliant melding of mystery, suspense, survival, and the supernatural" (The Vancouver Sun).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in Ross River, a tiny Canadian Yukon settlement, Pyper's subtle thriller develops a sense of dread more from the menace of uncontrollable forest fires and lurking grizzlies than the human predator who remains anonymous until the end. The local fire chief, Miles McEwan, is a loner whose hidden past is revealed when Alex, his vengeful former lover, arrives in Ross River with their five-year-old daughter, Rachel. Meanwhile, a retired executive and his wife come to town for a grizzly hunt, and it's wildfire season. As several fires combine to threaten Ross River's stubbornly independent inhabitants, the firefighters, the hunting party and the bears, an individual is plotting murder. Pyper (Lost Girls) writes beautifully about the splendor and dangers of the wilderness. He doesn't anthropomorphize, but his understanding of bears and fire imbues both with a life force. A bestseller in Canada, this novel offers excellent pacing and credible characters, though readers should be prepared for some horrific violence. (Dec.)
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.

From Booklist

Chosen as "Best Book of the Year" by three major Canadian newspapers, this third novel by award-winning Canadian Pyper is an edge-of-the-seat thriller, laced with a hint of Native American mysticism. It is also a study in character, set in the beautiful but unforgiving landscape north of the sixtieth parallel. Miles McEwan, a young man in love and ready to start medical school in the fall, becomes tragically disfigured while fighting a forest fire, scarred not only in body but also in spirit from the circumstances surrounding the fire. He flees his Toronto life and eventually makes his way to the Yukon, where, five years later, Alex, the woman he left behind, finally finds him. Interwoven with this story is that of a mother bear and her two cubs, at first the hunted, then ultimately the hunter. And, of course, the third strand of the story is the wildfire season in Ross River, where the absence of any forest fire proves almost as deadly as the uncontrollable fire that eventually rages through the area. Maureen O'Connor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Picador (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312427670
• ISBN-13: 978-0312427672
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,828,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write novels for a living, and it's the best (and now only) job I can imagine for myself. My books are usually referred to as thrillers, or "literary thrillers," or mysteries, or suspense, or even sometimes horror - though I see them as merely stories where bad things happen, and where people learn more of themselves through experiencing bad things. If those bad things are also scary and/or thrilling and/or mysterious, all the better.

My most recent novel is The Killing Circle, which is about what happens when a wannabe novelist steals another wannabe's story and the villain from that story is given life in the so-called "real world." It was selected as a Notable Crime Novel of the Year in The New York Times. Then there's The Wildfire Season, about a man who must pass through a forest fire that has encircled a remote town in order to save his ex-girlfriend and the daughter he met for the first time only days earlier. The Trade Mission has been called a "modern Heart of Darkness" and involves a pair of overnight dot-com millionaires (remember them?) brutally confronting non-virtual reality after being pursued in the Brazilian jungle. Finally (or originally) there's Lost Girls, which was a New York Times Notable Book and Globe and Mail Best Book, won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel, and concerns a defence lawyer who believes he's being visited by the ghosts of two girls, the presumed victims of a double murder committed either by his client...or the Lady of Lake, a local myth who waits to pull others down into the lake outside town...

The Killing Circle, The Wildfire Season and Lost Girls are all in active development (as they say) for feature films.

I also have a law degree I've never used, and a B.A. and M.A in English Literature which have proved considerably more handy. I live in Toronto for the most part.

There's more biographical tidbits and tidbits of other sorts too at my website: www.andrewpyper.com

Hope you enjoy the books!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Fire isn't like us. It never forgives.", April 1, 2008

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wildfire Season: A Novel (Paperback)

This novel was a surprise, what I expected in a well-plotted mystery enhanced by the basic themes of human and nature, betrayal, tragedy, redemption and the unpredictability of a forest fire on the rampage, a small flame simmering over a landscape, eventually dancing from tree to tree in a remote area of Yukon wilderness. Caught in the fire, the inhabitants of Ross River will face the fury of an out-of-control burn, their intimate personal struggles laid bare in a stunning denouement. From the first, from the eager, hungry tongues of flame that nibble on the dry branches, subdued by nighttime damp, to the electric atmosphere of the local bar, where a group of outcasts establish an uneasy peace, this story is fueled on raw energy, jealousy and rage, the tensions building as surely as the teasing blaze that twirls along the edges of its intent.

Lead firefighter Miles McEwan has finally retreated to the furthest corner of the world where he can exist on a minimum of commitment, his body half-clear, half-scarred by a fire that almost took his life along with his future. Marriage plans with Alex abruptly shattered by a psyche damaged as deeply inside as outside, Miles chose to run from a situation that overwhelmed him. Now, five years later, the smoky gloom of the bar is severed by a slice of sunlight and the entrance of a woman and a little girl, hand in hand. After five summers of searching, Alex has found Miles, come for her day of reckoning, their daughter's hand held in her fierce grip. Miles realizes the time has come to face the consequences of what he thought was pride, but is really cowardice, at least in Alex's eyes.

In this place, at this time, everything comes together, a long-time feud between a local guide, Wade, and Miles. Wade and Miles are eerily similar, except one has crossed the boundaries of a Faustian bargain, the other not yet committed to a soulless existence. As Alex bravely confronts Miles, purified by her anger, Rachel, her daughter, touches Miles' scarred face lovingly; elsewhere, a grizzly sow and her pups are trapped by Wade and his partner's wealthy hunter, setting yet another critical element of the drama in motion. Miles searches desperately for redemption, for one more chance as the ferocity of nature threatens, the world made small in a battle to survive the flames one more time. In wonderful, insightful prose, Pyper delivers on every count, man against nature and a formidable enemy to find his finer self. Luan Gaines/2008.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A surprising thriller., August 16, 2010

By 

TChris (Tzer Island) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wildfire Season: A Novel (Hardcover)

This novel deserves a wider audience. Sort of a thriller combined with an action-adventure-wilderness story, the novel is a welcome change from the cliched plots that pepper both genres. Although the story is a wild ride (the race to escape the rapidly spreading fire, not to mention the angry grizzly and the guy with the gun, is intense and memorable), the novel's strength comes from its well-developed characters and their interactions. The principle characters are all flawed or broken or both, and their issues are just as compelling as the wildfire that threatens them. Few novels succeed so well in blending the "story first" sensibility of genre fiction and the "character first" sensibility that drives mainstream fiction.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fine thriller, December 9, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wildfire Season: A Novel (Hardcover)

Miles McEwan moved to literally the end of the road when he relocated to Ross River in the Yukon to become the tiny hamlet's fire chief as he hides from his past though he cannot elude the fiery burn scars that mark and mock his face. Though he drinks a lot to somewhat bury his mental anguish that haunts him, Miles is also aware that he must remain somewhat sober as this is the area's inferno season when forest fires tend to go out of control.

However, this particular season is going be even more chaotic than any Miles can remember. His angry bitter former lover Alex and their five-year-old daughter Rachel have arrived in town; he does not want to see them because they would see him and what has become of him. There is also a bear hunting expedition that is foolish at a time when several fires nearby are blazing. When these separate conflagrations consolidate, the town is endangered. While Miles is distracted by his ex and the inferno, someone sees an opportunity to use the grizzly hunters and the fires to commit murder.

THE WILDFIRE SEASON is a terrific descriptive look at the dangers of the wilderness used as great background to a fine thriller. The fire scenes are superbly described so that the audience will feel the heat and peril facing heroes. Miles is a solid protagonist who wants no human contact except for his bartender serving him drinks, his firefighting team only in an official capacity, and rescues. The murder subplot augments a tense graphic tale that hooks readers from start to finish.

Harriet Klausner