Guilt, whether earned or simply perceived, is a rich vein that runs through Nicole Bokat‘s Will End in Fire – and it will have you second-guessing its central character, Ellie, from the get-go.
Mind you, Ellie has plenty of second-guessing of her own to do when a fire breaks out at the family home a short while after she’s left in a huff to return to her flat in Manhattan after a heated argument. Yes, she had a cigarette while she was there, but she’d stubbed it out… hadn’t she?
Whatever or whoever started the fire, what is certain is that Ellie’s younger brother Josh was in the house at the time. He is rushed to hospital with extensive burns, put into an induced coma and not expected to live. Which is where Ellie’s guilt kicks in… and snowballs into an all-encompassing emotion that has a huge impact on her work and private life.
She comes across as a po-faced vegan, worried about damaging the planet and well, a little dull – but this woman has dark depths and we’re about to plumb them. Because this isn’t her first brush with fire-starting – and soon, online rumours are being spread that Ellie was behind the blaze that nearly killed her brother.
The person feeding the flames of suspicion is none other than Anna Nunez, who was scarred for life in her teens after an incident involving Ellie… and a lighter. It was an accident, but Anna has never forgiven Ellie for what happened that day and she seizes her chance to stir up trouble. With Ellie’s parents giving all of their attention to their son – Josh has always been their golden boy – she has nobody to fight her corner, until her brother’s best friend, Drew, begins to offer her sympathy and support… and one thing leads to another as they begin a clandestine relationship.
Will End in Fire is densely plotted book with little room for lighter moments within its unremitting darkness. In Ellie, it has a protagonist who you may struggle to love. She’s certainly not someone you’d choose to go on a good night out with, and her lack of humour is something of a hindrance here. We spend a lot of time inside her head and it soon becomes clear that she isn’t the easiest of people to get along with.
That said, Nicole Bokat succeeds in creating an instantly relatable portrait of a family struggling to get through the most difficult of circumstances, and anyone who has ever spent endless hours waiting for news in a hospital will recognise the dreaded mix of hope, terror, disinfectant and claustrophobia that is all part and parcel of that experience.
As Ellie’s parents pull up the emotional drawbridge to concentrate on their seriously injured son, the seeds of sympathy for their outsider daughter are sown. Like the reader, she is set apart from the drama, looking in and powerless to help – and as she struggles to deal with what feels like ostracism, slowly, slowly, a more likeable side to Ellie’s character is revealed.
Fans of action-packed, thrill a minute crime novels will find little of that in Will End in Fire; instead, it’s a (no pun intended) slow burn of a book that is both complex and thought-provoking. This is by no means a thriller, but it is definitely a psychological crime book. Bokat is an accomplished writer whose skill lies in conveying the minutiae of a crisis, and digging deep into the psyche of the people affected by it. If you’re ready to be challenged, give this one a whirl.
She Writes Press
Print/Kindle/iBook
£9.94
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
