Spent Matches

Someone has set a fire at the Zigfield Art Museum in upper Manhattan. It's a "locked room" kind of fire that couldn't possibly have occurred. Or could it? Wylie Nolan, assisted by attorney Max Bramble, suddenly has to reconstruct one of the most puzzling fires of his career.

Meanwhile, at Wylie's office building, someone is setting fires in the ladies' room down the hall, trying to implicate Wylie's friend, attorney Miranda Yee.

And on City Island, a final, more devastating fire takes one life and threatens to destroy another.

Three fires: Where did they start and who caused them? When Wylie Nolan investigates a fire scene, he does so meticulously. He calls the facts as he sees them; and he notices details that nobody else sees in spent matches, burn patterns, and ashes.