After fifteen years working in East Africa, Frankie Rowley returns to
the New Hampshire village where her family has always spent their
summers. But the tranquility she's expecting proves short lived when, on
the very night she arrives, a mysterious arsonist begins targeting the
homes of other summer residents. As this seemingly idyllic community
becomes increasingly on edge, Frankie also has to deal with her father's
declining health--and begins a passionate affair with the editor of a
local paper that will yield its own remarkable risks and revelations.
Suspenseful, sophisticated, and finely wrought, The Arsonist is an
artfully nuanced and deeply emotional novel about a family and a
community tested, about how and where one ought to live, and about what
it means to lead a fulfilling life.