Fire is a vicious and greedy killer. It consumes not only its victims, but nearly all evidence of its creator- carried aloft in a column of smoke and ash. Beyond recognition. There is a homicidal arsonist loose in Seattle. Single mothers are being killed in fires that burn hotter than experts have ever seen. The children are spared. Why?

For Seattle Police Sergeant Lou Boldt and the department’s psychologist, Daphne Matthews, the High Temperature Accelerant fires challenge their every resource. The fuel used in these deadly fires is as much a mystery as the identity of the arsonist who sets them.

A Seattle fire marshal reveals to Lou Boldt the ominous quotations sent to him before each of the fires. A twelve- year-old boy, caught in an ugly battle at home, unintentionally witnesses a drug deal that may not involve drugs at all, but ingredients far more volatile and lethal. Did the boy, in fact, see the arsonist’s face? Can police rely on a twelve-year-old boy as a witness? Or is the fire marshal, his past suddenly in question, more involved than he wants to believe?