Product Description

When a businessman arrives home to find his wife in bed, carved from belly to throat with a very sharp knife, the elite Robbery-Homicide division of the L.A.P.D responds in full force and Detective Lena Gamble prepares for her first major case.

At first all fingers point towards the victim’s husband, but best-case scenarios only happen in films and it soon transpires that this murder is one of a series of brutal crimes against women and the work of a killer dubbed ‘Romeo’ by the ravenous Hollywood media.

Lena is all too aware of the peril of the public eye - she has found herself in it before, on the night of her rock-star brother’s unsolved murder five years ago. And now she risks a far more dangerous fame as a cloud of conspiracy descends on her investigation and she edges towards Romeo’s deadly line of sight . . .

Whilst a massive forest fire blankets the city the murderous trail moves far too close to home and past and present horrors seem to be colliding in a single nightmare. Lena must catch this psychopath before she becomes his next glamorous victim . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #774984 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 340 pages

Michael Connelly
'City of Fire is my kind of crime novel. Gritty, tight and
assured.'

Dorset Echo
'a sharp, snappy and engrossing thriller with a chilling beginning
and a wicked twist. It will have you hooked from the outset and turning the
pages into the early hours.'

The Bookseller
'A commercial first novel with lots of enthusiasm from Pan.'

Customer Reviews

Romeo fiddles while LA burns
Hollywood Robbery-Homicide Detective Lena Gamble is the central character in a contemporary serial killer thriller set against a backdrop of forest-fire ravaged Los Angeles. The media cynically nickname the vicious killer Romeo, not the most accurate of descriptions as there is nothing romantic about his modus operandi. But the reader knows exactly who Romeo is from a relatively early stage, knowing his name, where he works and most importantly his motives and twisted psychology. Meanwhile the burden that Lena Gamble perpetually bears is the memory of her late brother, a successful rock star who was shot dead five years earlier but whose murder was never solved.

The most interesting character in City of Fire is probably Romeo, the serial killer everyone wants to track down. All the others, including Lena Gamble, are rather forgettable individuals which means that the novel depends heavily on the basic story. Fortunately that element comes to the rescue of the book's quest for success, because not only is it a mostly gripping story from start to finish, it also contains what were for me a couple of thick and juicy surprise twists at the end that I really hadn't seen coming at all. There's a degree of clever reader manipulation going on here, because your emotions will swing one way then the other and maybe swing yet again, in a novel containing characters that you start out liking but end up detesting, and vice versa. In truth though that's suggesting that I really cared about the good guys when there was never a time that I did. I'm not sure if this is the first in a series to feature Lena Gamble, but it's a marginal call as to whether she cuts it sufficiently to carry one alone. The inevitable comparison would be Harry Bosch, created and perfected by Michael Connelly who gives this novel a plug on the front cover. But Bosch is several leagues above in terms of characterisation and how much the reader cares, because Lena Gamble is nothing special.

In spite of that, the novel is definitely worth reading, and although it's a touch too long in the middle the ending is excellent and full of surprises, so it's not a mistake to reveal the killer's identity so soon by any means. In hindsight, it couldn't have been done any other way. One of the highlights was the detailed examination of Romeo's psychopathic personality, something that few serial-killer novel writers attempt to do but Ellis does so with conviction and skill.

Romeo fiddles while LA burns
Hollywood Robbery-Homicide Detective Lena Gamble is the central character in a contemporary serial killer thriller set against a backdrop of forest-fire ravaged Los Angeles. The media cynically nickname the vicious killer Romeo, not the most accurate of descriptions as there is nothing romantic about his modus operandi. But the reader knows exactly who Romeo is from a relatively early stage, knowing his name, where he works and most importantly his motives and twisted psychology. Meanwhile the burden that Lena Gamble perpetually bears is the memory of her late brother, a successful rock star who was shot dead five years earlier but whose murder was never solved.

The most interesting character in City of Fire is probably Romeo, the serial killer everyone wants to track down. All the others, including Lena Gamble, are rather forgettable individuals which means that the novel depends heavily on the basic story. Fortunately that element comes to the rescue of the book's quest for success, because not only is it a mostly gripping story from start to finish, it also contains what were for me a couple of thick and juicy surprise twists at the end that I really hadn't seen coming at all. There's a degree of clever reader manipulation going on here, because your emotions will swing one way then the other and maybe swing yet again, in a novel containing characters that you start out liking but end up detesting, and vice versa. In truth though that's suggesting that I really cared about the good guys when there was never a time that I did. I'm not sure if this is the first in a series to feature Lena Gamble, but it's a marginal call as to whether she cuts it sufficiently to carry one alone. The inevitable comparison would be Harry Bosch, created and perfected by Michael Connelly who gives this novel a plug on the front cover. But Bosch is several leagues above in terms of characterisation and how much the reader cares, because Lena Gamble is nothing special.

In spite of that, the novel is definitely worth reading, and although it's a touch too long in the middle the ending is excellent and full of surprises, so it's not a mistake to reveal the killer's identity so soon by any means. In hindsight, it couldn't have been done any other way. One of the highlights was the detailed examination of Romeo's psychopathic personality, something that few serial-killer novel writers attempt to do but Ellis does so with conviction and skill.

Interesting twists
Three stars but a high three stars.

Lena Gamble is alone in the world. Her parents died when she was young and she and her brother ran away from foster care. Her brother became a successful music star and she joined the police. When he died she was devistated. She's now a detective, still wondering about her brother's unsolved murder.

Her family are her fellow cops. Her partner Novak is almost a substitute father figure and he decides to give her the next case for her to lead for the first time. It looks straighforward enough. A wife killed by a husband, but there's something not quite right about it and when a second happens with similar methods the husband is no longer a suspect and when they start digging things start getting more complicated. Lena finds herself as a focus for the murderer.

Along with this the cold case investigation of her brother's death progresses.

It's a gritty fairly realistic thriller and while some of the coincidences are a little overdone the story winds its way to it's conclusion well. Some of the twists took me by surprise and kept me wondering about motives and reasoning. It's one of those stories where the reader knows the murderer from fairly early on, but the detectives know little about what's going on until near the end. I found it a satisfying read but nothing spectacular.