The New York Times bestselling author of The Empty Chair and The Devil's Teardrop, is back displaying his "ticking-bomb suspense" (People) in this never-before-published thriller. Every New York City neighborhood has a story, but what John Pellam uncovers in Hell's Kitchen has a darkness all its own. The Hollywood location scout and former stuntman is in the Big Apple hoping to capture the unvarnished memories of longtime Kitchen residents such as Ettie Washington in a no-budget documentary film. But when a suspicious fire ravages the elderly woman's crumbling tenement, Pellam realizes that someone might want the past to stay buried. As more buildings and lives go up in flames, Pellam takes to the streets, seeking the twisted pyromaniac who sells services to the highest bidder. But Pellam is unaware that the fires are merely flickering preludes to the arsonist's ultimate masterpiece, a conflagration of nearly unimaginable proportion, with Hell's Kitchen -- and John Pellam -- at its blackened and searing epicenter. Jeffery Deaver is the #1 internationally bestselling author of forty-four novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages. His first novel featuring Lincoln Rhyme, The Bone Collector , was made into a major motion picture starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie and a hit television series on NBC. He’s received or been shortlisted for a number of awards around the world, including Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers and the Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association in the United Kingdom. In 2014, he was the recipient of three lifetime achievement awards. He has been named a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America. Chapter One He climbed the stairs, his boots falling heavily on burgundy floral carpet and, where it was threadbare, on the scarred oak beneath. The stairwell was unlit; in neighborhoods like this one the bulbs were stolen from the ceiling sockets and the emergency exit signs as soon as they were replaced. John Pellam lifted his head, tried to place a curious smell. He couldn't. Knew only that it left him feeling unsettled, edgy. Second floor, the landing, starting up another flight. This was maybe his tenth time to the old tenement but he was still finding details that had eluded him on prior visits. Tonight what caught his eye was a stained-glass valance depicting a hummingbird hovering over a yellow flower. In a hundred-year-old tenement, in one of the roughest parts of New York City....Why beautiful stained glass? And why a hummingbird? A shuffle of feet sounded above him and he glanced up. He'd thought he was alone. Something fell, a soft thud. A sigh. Like the undefinable smell, the sounds left him uneasy. Pellam paused on the third-floor landing and looked at the stained glass above the door to apartment 3B. This valance -- a bluebird, or jay, sitting on a branch -- was as carefully done as the hummingbird downstairs. When he'd first come here, several months ago, he'd glanced at the scabby facade and expected that the interior would be decrepit. But he'd been wrong. It was a craftsman's showpiece: oak floorboards joined solid as steel, walls of plaster seamless as marble, the sculpted newel posts and banisters, arched alcoves (built into the walls to hold, presumably, Catholic icons). He -- That smell again. Stronger now. His nostrils flared. Another thud above him. A gasp. He felt urgency and, looking up, he continued along the narrow stairs, listing against the weight of the Betacam, batteries and assorted videotaping effluence in the bag. He was sweating rivers. It was ten P.M. but the month was August and New York was at its most demonic. What was that smell? The scent flirted with his memory then vanished again, obscured by the aroma of frying onions, garlic and overused oil. He remembered that Ettie kept a Folgers coffee can filled with old grease on her stove. "Saves me some money, I'll tell you." Halfway between the third and fourth floors Pellam paused again, wiped his stinging eyes. That's what did it. He remembered: A Studebaker. He pictured his parent's purple car, the late 1950s, resembling a spaceship, burning slowly down to the tires. His father had accidentally dropped a cigarette on the seat, igniting the upholstery of the Buck Rogers car. Pellam, his parents and the entire block watched the spectacle in horror or shock or secret delight. What he smelled now was the same. Smoulder, smoke. Then a cloud of hot fumes wafted around him. He glanced over the banister into the stairwell. At first he saw nothing but darkness and haze; then, with a huge explosion, the door to the basement blew inward and flames like rocket exhaust filled the stairwell and the tiny first-floor lobby. "Fire!" Pellam shouted, as the black cloud preceding the flames boiled up at him. He was banging on the nearest d