{"product_id":"the-burning-isbn-9780525620136","title":"The Burning","description":"\u003cb\u003eThings get personal for Deputy Coroner Clay Edison when a murder hits close to home in this riveting, emotional thriller from the bestselling father-son team who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King).\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA raging wildfire. A massive blackout. A wealthy man shot to death in his palatial hilltop home.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eFor Clay Edison, it’s all in a day’s work. As a deputy coroner, caring for the dead, he speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves. He prides himself on an unflinching commitment to the truth. Even when it gets him into trouble.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThen, while working the murder scene, Clay is horrified to discover a link to his brother, Luke. Horrified. But not surprised. Luke is fresh out of prison and struggling to stay on the straight and narrow.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAnd now he’s gone AWOL.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe race is on for Clay to find him before anyone else can. Confronted with Luke’s legacy of violence, Clay is forced to reckon with his own suspicions, resentments, and loyalties. Is his brother a killer? Or could he be the victim in all of this, too?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis is Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman at their most affecting and page-turning—a harrowing collision of family, revenge, and murder.“This is another superb crime thriller from the prolific and talented father-and-son Kellermans. Set in the San Francisco Bay Area during one of the state’s terrible wildfires, the story is . . .  a riveting page-turner of a mystery with pulse-pounding action, and a compelling look at family dynamics and loyalty. The shock ending doesn't hurt, either.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“As always, the Kellermans guarantee that readers will turn pages rapidly to enjoy the complex characters and intricate plot turns. It’s another winner for mystery readers.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Intriguing . . . the bestselling Kellermans provide food for thought along with a tidy mystery.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eJonathan Kellerman\u003c\/b\u003e is the #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of more than forty crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series, \u003ci\u003eThe Butcher’s Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, Twisted, True Detectives,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Murderer’s Daughter.\u003c\/i\u003e With his wife, bestselling novelist Faye Kellerman, he co-authored \u003ci\u003eDouble Homicide\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e Capital Crimes.\u003c\/i\u003e With his son, bestselling novelist Jesse Kellerman, he co-authored \u003ci\u003eCrime Scene, A Measure of Darkness, The Golem of Hollywood,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Golem of Paris\u003c\/i\u003e. He is also the author of two children’s books and numerous nonfiction works, including S\u003ci\u003eavage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWith Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars.\u003c\/i\u003e He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Jonathan and Faye Kellerman live in California and New Mexico.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJesse Kellerman \u003c\/b\u003ewon the Princess Grace Award for best young American playwright and is the author of \u003ci\u003eSunstroke, Trouble\u003c\/i\u003e (nominated for the ITW Thriller Award for Best Novel), \u003ci\u003eThe Genius\u003c\/i\u003e (winner of the Grand Prix des Lectrices de \u003ci\u003eElle\u003c\/i\u003e), \u003ci\u003eThe Executor,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePotboiler\u003c\/i\u003e (nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel). He lives in California.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMonday. Nineteen hours in the dark.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dead man lived up the hill. We could have walked, if the world wasn’t ending and we didn’t have to bring him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut it was and we did, so Harkless and I suited up and went out to the parking lot. As we exited the building a stunning fist of heat descended on us. The nearest wildfire was thirty miles away. Gritty sky and roaring air gave the illusion it was right over the ridge, climbing fast.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe apocalypse smells like a campfire and glimmers gold.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough fierce raking wind we hurried to the body van, got in, and slammed the doors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbove his respirator mask Harkless kept blinking. “God.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe pulled the mask down over his chin and wiped at the sweat ringing his lips. “You know where we’re going?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI nodded and started the van.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe climbed a steep, peaceful residential neighborhood crammed with split-­level wood-­frame ranch homes built in the late fifties. Long before anybody could imagine that million-­acre fires, killing winds, and weeklong blackouts would become a season unto themselves. The houses weren’t under direct threat, but tight spacing and a uniform color scheme made them look like rows of matchbooks ready to ignite.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo cars on the road. No children playing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWind pummeled the van, rocking it from side to side.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eScottish theme for street names: Aberdeen, Ayr, Dumfries, Inverness. Kilmarnock Court tapered south to a single potholed lane. Then large white painted letters issued a warning: begin private road. The paving beyond was fresher, darker, glassy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn lieu of a guardhouse, a stern sign limited access to members of the Chabot Park Summit Homeowners’ Association and their guests, forbidding parking, loitering, or hiking, and promising to tow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI eased the van over a speed bump. The gurneys jounced and gave a cough.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEntering the development we passed through an invisible portal. The aesthetics changed as did the financial calculus. The guiding principle was no longer efficient rectangles but relaxed curves, the goal no longer maximizing units per acre but dollars per unit. Stately new-­builds shied back behind stone walls and high hedges. Slate roofs replaced asphalt tile. The architectural styles were varied. You had the money; you got what you wanted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLess a community than a series of fortresses.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I had no idea this was here,” Harkless said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThis:\u003c\/i\u003e rich people. \u003ci\u003eHere:\u003c\/i\u003e less than two miles from the county morgue.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe banked through stands of eucalyptus and California live oak to reach a long driveway that sloped up and out of view. An ultramodern fence of black metal slats set between concrete pillars stretched at street level. Double gates lay open. Flanking them were two larger pillars, one of which sported a security camera.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn Oakland PD cruiser with nobody at the wheel blocked the path. We waited for someone to appear.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Rise and shine, sweetheart,” Harkless said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe leaned over and thumped the horn.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA uniform waddled out from behind a sycamore, tugging up his fly. “Sorry.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe signed us in and spoke into his shoulder. “Coroner’s here.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe driveway was longer than I’d realized, switchbacking up through buckthorn, sagebrush, coffeeberry, manzanita—­native species curated to simulate wildness. The effect was undone by drip tubes bulging through the ground cover like junkie veins. By the time we leveled out, we’d gained seventy feet of elevation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe hilltop had been decapitated, smoothed, plumbed, and wired, then meticulously reassembled, stone by stone, shrub by shrub, like a monument to the vanquished. For all that, the house made no attempt to blend in: a towering stack of cantilevered glass boxes sandwiched between layers of whitewash.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe driveway broadened to a sprawling concrete motor court clogged with black-­and-­whites, an ambulance, the crime lab van. A wide concrete tributary slipped between the redwoods toward a mini-­me guesthouse. To the west, the downslope had been buzz-­cut. A clear day would give breathtaking views of the Bay, the city, all the bridges.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLost, today, beneath a blanket of toxic haze.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBreathtaking, in a different sense.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe put on our masks and got out. Harkless hustled up the front steps. I followed with the Nikon slung over my shoulder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInside, a massive foyer opened out to a massive living room with double-­height ceilings and vast glass walls. The décor was spaceship-­chic: whites, blacks, Lucite, chrome. Furniture sectioned off zones serving various functions, all of them leisurely.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMirrored wet bar with zebra-­skin stools. White concert grand. Two white low-­pile rugs, each large enough to swaddle a shipping container.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOnly a scatter of yellow plastic evidence markers disrupted the color palette.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe power had been off for nearly twenty-­four hours, and the interior had devolved to a greenhouse. I exhaled and my mask seemed to fill with warm syrup. I wondered how much it must cost to cool the place.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnyone who could afford to live here wouldn’t worry about utility bills.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew people thought about their electricity, until it stopped flowing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA sitting area near the bar was in disarray, end table overturned and puddles of broken glass. Criminalists in coveralls dusted, swabbed, tweezed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo body.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI could smell it, though.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the foot of the staircase Harkless greeted the detective, a trim middle-­aged guy with a gaucho mustache and a slab of chocolate-­brown hair. Despite the stifling conditions, he’d kept his suit jacket on, the ensemble medium tan with sharp creases sewn into the pant legs. The knot of his tie looked hard as a walnut.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Cesar Rigo,” he said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe victim was a white male fifty-­five to seventy-­five years of age, dead of apparent gunshot wounds to the back and neck. The woman who’d called 911 confirmed him as the homeowner, Rory Vandervelde.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Who’s she?” Harkless asked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Davina Santos. The victim’s housekeeper. She arrived for work at nine a.m. and discovered the body.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Is she still around?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I have an officer attending her in the pool house,” Rigo said. “I feel compelled to warn you, she is rather distraught.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe sprinkled his words like a chef does salt.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“We’ll be gentle,” Harkless said. “She mention anything about family?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“According to her he’s widowed. There’s a girlfriend who stays over on occasion and a son in Southern California. She professes not to know the son’s name. The girlfriend’s name is Nancy.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Last name?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRigo shook his head. “She referred to her only as Miss Nancy.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEither the smell was getting stronger or I was homing in on its source. I lowered my mask, craning.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRigo gave a slight, curious smile. “Shall we?”\u003c\/p\u003eNew York Times bestselling authors","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305542504677,"sku":"NP9780525620136","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525620136.jpg?v=1767738566","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-burning-isbn-9780525620136","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}