And By Fire: A Novel

by Evie Hawtrey

Overview

Tempered by fire and separated by centuries, two extraordinary female detectives track a pair of murderous geniuses who will burn the world for their art in this mystery perfect for fans of Sarah Penner and Dan Brown.

Nigella Parker, Detective Inspector with the City Police, has a deeply rooted fear of fire and a talent for solving deadly arson cases. When a charred figure is found curled beside Sir Christopher Wren’s Monument to the Great Fire of London, Nigella is dragged into a case pitting her against a murderous artist creating sculptures using burnt flesh.

Nigella partners with Colm O’Leary of Scotland Yard to track the arsonist across greater London. The pair are more than colleagues—they were lovers until O’Leary made the mistake of uttering three little words. Their past isn’t the only buried history as they race to connect the dots between an antique nail pulled from a dead man’s hands and a long-forgotten architect dwarfed by the life’s work of Sir Christopher Wren.

Wren, one of London’s most famous architects, is everywhere the pair turn. Digging into his legacy leads the DCIs into the coldest of cold cases: a search for a bookseller gone missing during the Great Fire of London. More than 350 years earlier, while looking for their friend, a second pair of detectives—a lady-in-waiting to the Queen and a royal fireworks maker—discovered foul play in the supposedly accidental destruction of St. Paul’s Cathedral…but did that same devilry lead to murder? And can these centuries-old crimes help catch a modern-day murderer?

As Nigella and O’Leary rush to decode clues, past and present, London’s killer-artist sets his sights on a member of the investigative team as the subject of his next fiery masterpiece.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643859934
Publisher:	CROOKED LANE BOOKS
Publication date:	05/10/2022
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Evie Hawtrey is a Yank by birth but a sister-in-spirit to her fierce and feminist London detective, DI Nigella Barker. Evie splits her time between Washington DC, where she lives with her husband, and York, UK, where she enjoys living in history, lingering over teas, and knocking around in pubs.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for And By Fire:
“[Readers will] root for both heroines.”
—Kirkus

“Well-developed characters will appeal to fans of historical mysteries or police procedurals and to Anglophiles.”
—Library Journal

“At the same time entertaining and enlightening, the narrative reveals how established monuments to the past sometimes keep inaccuracies alive and how largely forgotten events and figures can fester.”
—Historical Novel Society

“[An] atmospheric, absorbing mystery.”
—First Clue

"Bones meets the Restoration Court in Evie Hawtrey's And By Fire, a taut dual-timeline mystery that races along at the pace of an inferno! When London detective Nigella Parker teams up with her Scotland Yard ex-lover to solve a tricky arson case, she never imagines it will lead her to a centuries-old mystery . . . and another pair of unlikely sleuths from the court of Charles II. As Nigella and her partner race through 21st century London to find a serial killer who sculpts in fire-burned flesh, and a 17th century fireworks-maker and royal lady-in-waiting struggle to find the truth behind the destruction of St. Paul’s during the deadly Great Fire of London, all four lives will hang in the balance. Fresh, dynamic, and crisply researched, And By Fire will appeal to histfic fans and mystery readers alike—I couldn't put this one down!"
—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network

“You’ll smell the smoke, taste the ashes, and feel the tension as you race through this exquisitely researched crime thriller. The plot twists and unforgettable images evoked by Evie Hawtrey’s And By Fire will linger long after you turn the last page!” 
—Ellen Marie Wiseman, New York Times bestseller of The Orphan Collector

“You'll burn through the pages of this time-twisty thriller!”
—Mindy McGinnis, Edgar Award winning author of A Madness So Discreet

“Two determined women, separated by more than three centuries, struggle to uncover a deadly secret that burns at the heart of London. This is a taut and suspenseful read, rich in history and human drama. You won't soon forget it!”
—Nancy Bilyeau, author of The Blue

From the Publisher

03/14/2022

Two fire-related mysteries set centuries apart drive this middling double whodunit from Hawtrey (Ribbons of Scarlet as Sophie Perinot). In present-day London, Det. Insp. Nigella Parker, an arson specialist, is assigned to an odd blaze—someone set fire to a wooden figure of a person at the site of a memorial to the Great Fire of London of 1666. Nigella’s fears that the vandalism is the precursor to something worse are validated when a burnt corpse, posed as if crucified, is found in the Inner Temple. A necktie bearing the image of St. Paul’s Church was bound around its head, with a message written on its back that reads in part: “this fool died for all sinners who mistake celebrity for genius.” Meanwhile, in 1666, Queen Catherine Braganza’s maid, Margaret Dove, looks into the intriguing, if historically unsupported, theory that the conflagration that gutted the city was set intentionally for a sinister purpose. Neither lead is memorable, and the past story line offers a shocking solution to the fire’s origin that will strike many as unpersuasive. This is no An Instance of the Fingerpost. Agent: Michael Carr, Veritas Literary. (May)

Publishers Weekly

04/01/2022

DEBUT In 1666, London was ravaged by the Great Fire, and Lady Margaret Dove, Maid of Honour to the Queen, along with Etienne Belland, Charles II's fireworks maker, searched for a killer who used the fire to cover up a murder. Over 350 years later, Detective Inspector Nigella Parker of the City of London police force teams up with DI Colm O'Leary of Scotland Yard as an artist obsessed with the work of Sir Christopher Wren leaves artwork, and then bodies, at historic sites associated with the famous architect. Lady Margaret and Belland hunt for the person who killed a bookseller in the shadow of fire. Parker and O'Leary are searching for a murderer who uses fire to kill and celebrate art. Two pairs of detectives, separated by time, uncover clues connected by one figure, Sir Christopher Wren. VERDICT Both story lines intensify, leading to unusual conclusions in Hawtrey's debut mystery. The well-developed characters will appeal to fans of historical mysteries or police procedurals and to Anglophiles.—Lesa Holstine

Library Journal

2022-01-26
A series of increasingly scary blazes in contemporary London is linked to the most storied fire in the city’s history.

The only casualty in the first fire, at the monument commemorating the Great Fire of 1666, is a wooden sculpture the witness who finds it mistakes for a dead man. But the second ups the ante by claiming the life of randy solicitor Andrew Smyth, whose corpse is recognized by its distinctive necktie. Working with her Met counterpart, DI Colm O’Leary, the City of London’s DI Nigella Parker, nicknamed “the moth” because of her fascination with fires, painstakingly follows every clue—but they lead either to dead ends, like office cleaner Nelson Taylor, who stops sputtering long enough to provide a most convincing alibi, or to the year of the Great Fire. Meanwhile, Hawtrey, not content to invoke the past through thematic and geographical parallels, intertwines her primary investigation with a second story: the fate of Margaret Dove, Maid of Honour to Queen Catherine Braganza, who begins 1666 by falling in love with Etienne Belland, who makes fireworks for Catherine’s husband, King Charles II, and then, after witnessing the Great Fire from an agonizingly intimate position, begins to suspect a most unlikely perpetrator. Although the author acknowledges in an afterword that the Great Fire was almost certainly started by accident, readers swept up in this double-barreled inferno will forget the history they know as they root for both heroines to bring the malefactors to book before things get even hotter.

The ambitious, audacious rewriting of the historical record will linger long after the routine tale of present-day arson.

Kirkus Reviews