Blog Tour: Into the Flames – James Delargy

A town under fire. A detective with something to prove. A killer hiding in plain sight.

The small town of Rislake in the picturesque Blue Mountains is about to be engulfed by a major bushfire.
The order has been given for the residents to clear out.
But a last sweep uncovers one person is missing: Tracey Hilmeyer, wife of one of the firefighters tackling the blaze.

Detective Kennard is in town to help with crowd control, but instead he finds himself driving straight towards the inferno to look for Tracey at the Hilmeyer home.
When he gets there, he finds her dead at the bottom of the stairs, and it’s clear she was murdered.

With the evacuation almost complete there is barely enough time to save the living never mind the dead.
But Detective Kennard has something to prove and cannot let this one go.

Can he solve her murder before the crime scene, and the entire town, turns to ash?

James Delargy was born and raised in Ireland and lived in South Africa, Australia and Scotland, before ending up in semi-rural England where he now lives. He incorporates this diverse knowledge of towns, cities, landscapes and cultures picked up on his travels into his writing. His first novel, 55, was published in 2019 by Simon & Schuster and has been sold to 21 territories to date, and was followed by the standalone thrillers Vanished (2021) and Into the Flames (2023). Find him on Twitter: @jdelargyauthor

My thoughts: I never quite understand why anyone moves to Australia, where everything, including the weather, wants to kill you, and that’s without human killers.

DS Kennard is sent to the small town of Rislake after failing to stop a teenager from shooting himself in a tense situation. He’s got PTSD but won’t take time off. Rislake is in the grip of a raging wildfire and as the town evacuates, the body of Tracey Hilmeyer is found in her hallway, her head caved in. Who killed her and why?

Trying to investigate a murder in the middle of a huge fire, evidence on the verge of being destroyed, the husband (and possible suspect) a firefighter, witnesses quite lacking, is not easy. And hardly anyone seems to have known the victim well.

She was locked in a war with her sister over their inheritance, had lost her business and spent much of her time alone. As the detectives dig into her life and possible murderers, they discover she had plenty of secrets. Could one of them have got her killed?

Tense and clever, this was a gripping and engaging crime thriller with a deadline – they might have to evacuate any moment as the fire creeps closer and lose all their evidence and suspects.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.