The Wildfire Season

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).

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.)
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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
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