A duo of my favorite authors,
Joyce and Jim Lavene, writing as J. J. Cook has begun yet
another new series. I am always amazed at their ability to
start from scratch and create a completely new set of characters,
places, events and, well, murders!
Stella Griffin is in Sweet Pepper, Tennessee, acting as the
new fire chief and training volunteers of the Sweet Pepper
Fire Brigade to be an ongoing crew, capable of fighting fires
once she has gone back to Chicago. Yet there seems to be a
rash of fires and people dying, and Stella knows that there
is more to this than meets the eye. She's trained to investigate
suspicious fires, and that arson training puts her own life
in jeopardy.
With a resident ghost haunting her temporary home, Stella
questions her own beliefs. As it happens, the ghost was the
last fire chief in town. He knows a lot of information and
secrets (including a recipe for Candied Hot Peppers that Stella
can enter in the Sweet Pepper Food Festival contest), and
becomes a larger than life (or death) character.
This is a fabulous start to what promises to be a fantastic
new series. J. J. Cook set up a great backdrop in Tennessee
and introduces a plethora of characters on which they can
build in future books. You'll want to get in on the ground
floor of this series and I highly recommend that your get
your copy of "That Old Flame of Mine" as
fast as you can. I rate this book a 5 Habanero Hot Pepper
read! |
