Into the Inferno (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's a tribute to Earl Emerson's narrative skill that he manages to make this implausible medical mystery not only believable but also compelling. When fire chief Jim Swopes traces the unknown disease that's wiped out half his department in less than a week to a truck crash on a western Washington highway, he knows his days are numbered--like the other victims, all of whom died, he has just seven days to live unless he can find an antidote to a chemical poison no one else believes exists. Helped by a beautiful doctor whose comatose sister drove one of the trucks in the crash, he traces the poison to a biotech firm with nothing to lose and everything to gain by letting the clock run out. But until it does, this tightly plotted race-against-time thriller will keep you riveted. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Seattle firefighter Jim Swope-the irresistible protagonist of this latest high-octane thriller from the author of the Thomas Black detective series-is, in his own words, "destined for a jail cell, a straitjacket, or more likely, to end up dancing the funky chicken in a fusillade of bullets." This divorced, womanizing father of two has just realized he has exactly six days to figure out the nature of the mysterious ailment that's been killing off his North Bend Fire and Rescue colleagues-and is about to fell him, too. It all started several months ago, when he and other firefighters reported to the scene of a highway accident. It was here that Swope met emotionally unstable trucker Holly Riggs, a woman who became his girlfriend, then his ex-girlfriend, then his stalker. When Holly's sister, Stephanie, finds her in a coma months after the accident, she figures it was a suicide attempt. Only when Jim's colleagues also fall into comas does Jim realize that they were all poisoned at the scene of the accident. Each victim has only a week to live from the day his symptoms begin, and Jim already has trembling hands and a headache. He and Stephanie team up to uncover a tangled web of corporate corruption extending far beyond the Pacific Northwest, but centering on a nearby "hazmat" facility. Emerson, a veteran Seattle firefighter, infuses the firehouse scenes with expert detail, but it's the full-bodied characterization and wry humor of "mad dog" Swope that really sizzle. Readers who like a little hot sauce with their mystery will snatch this up.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (March 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345445910
• ISBN-13: 978-0345445919
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,724,785 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Emerson in Years, March 14, 2003

By A Customer

Earl Emerson is my favorite author. His newest endeavor is only his second stand-alone novel. The writing is crisp, funny and totally enthralling. The lead character is not your typical problem solver. He thinks of himself as a jerk (especially to women) and not very bright. It's actually quite refreshing. It's highly entertaining to read a novel wherein: the reader in captivated by the plot, entrigued by the characters, and can appreciate the fine points of the author's style. Emerson can have a character who was brought up in a religoius cult say that he thinks his parents concept of heaven sounds "boring as hell." This novel is never boring!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Emerson's best work yet!, March 7, 2003

By	Naomi Johnson "beauvallet" (Columbus, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Amazing how the man can write such a dark tale about a man facing an imminent, ugly, and irrevocable end (brain death), and still find so many ways to make me laugh. Swope, our "hero" if he can be called that, is one of those guys who in real life makes my eyes cross, he's so inept and cowardly in his personal relationships, and so sure that the trip wire in those relationships could never have been put there by him. Yet he's drawn so finely by Emerson that Swope's flaws are part of the attraction -- you just can't help liking the idiot! He's flesh and blood and so very human.

The plot -- you can read about that in the professional reviews. Suffice it to say, this is one fabulous page-turner. Swope is running against the clock, and the short chapters -- every single one contributing to moving the plot forward; no wasted words here! -- seem to add to the quick pacing.

As for Emerson's prose, it's always been very, very good, but in this book I think he has taken his work to a new level. In his hands Crude American Vernacular becomes Sheer Poetry, and I'd love to provide examples but I doubt if amazon.com will print those words. Just... the letters MF now have a whole different connotation than the common street profanity I've always heard!

This is a beautiful book, filled with both honesty and humor (I mean laugh-out-loud funny). More than a simple thriller, we get the inside scoop on a man's self-examination when facing the total devastation of his life. How Swope comes to grips with his own sins, and the sins of others, is as fascinating as the fires and aid calls that Emerson describes to perfection. And yeah, I might even have got a bit wet around the eyes at the end.

And I want Mel Gibson to play Swope in the movie...

And one last note: The best, I mean THE VERY BEST chapter titles yet!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Always Figured Emerson Would Dabble in Sci-Fi, May 2, 2005

By	Jenny Hanniver "medieval_student" (Philadelphia, PA, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Into the Inferno (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a typical Earl Emerson mystery, which means it's a wowzer of a story, with plausible characterization, wry humor, good misdirection and nonstop action scenes--but this one goes even farther. Jim Swope, the firefighter hero, will become a vegetable unless he discovers an antidote for an unknown poison that he and several others handled during a highway fire, and that quest gives this novel the flavor of a near-future sci-fi medical thriller.

I love Emerson's chapter titles in his Mac Fontana and stand-alone firefighting novels, which often make references to sci-fi books or movies (like "Stephanie Gets Into Donovan's Brain" in this book), so I figure it was only a matter of time before my favorite fireman would cross the line and slip a sci-fi element into his plot! More! More!