Slow Fire Burning

Author: Paula Hawkins
Publisher: Penguin 2021

Paula Hawkins catapulted to stardom with her very first book "The Girl On The Train".  She took us on a ride with an emotionally imbalanced woman in that book rather successfully and as a result I still remember that story.  She tried to make another story with emotionally imbalanced characters in her second book but I cannot remember that story that well.  In this book she stayed away from emotions—or did not rely too much on emotions—and told a story of a few characters involving everybody in the narrative. I was engaged in some heavy reading that required a lot of attention and this book helped me to relax my mind inbetween.

A young man's body was found in a boat and a physically and mentally damaged girl became the prime suspect.  However, this young man's aunt and uncle had secrets and some neighbors knew about them.  Even those neighbors had secrets of their own and everybody seems to be connected to this young man's murder one way or another.  Paula slowly and methodically revealed those secrets and even though the climax could be somewhat predicted by the middle of the book, it did not dampen the desire to read the book to the end.   I think this is a successful book.