Bushfires have been a way of life in Australia for a long time and have become a bit of a staple of into crime fiction. Bushfires cap off Jane Harper’s debut The Dry and Adrian Hyland’s Canticle Creek and Australian authors Michael Brissenden (Smoke) and LA Larkin (The Safe Place) set their novels in America. So it is up to English author (and former Australian), James Delargy to write a crime novel set during an Australian bushfire in Into the Flames.
The action of Into the Flames takes place in and around the Blue Mountains town of Rislake which is under threat from a major bushfire. Half of Rislake has been evacuated and the other half is preparing to do the same. Into this hellish milieu comes new local cop Alex Kennard. Kennard has been transferred to the Blue Mountains under a cloud and is not really trusted by his colleagues. But when Kennard discovers the body of local woman Tracey Hilmeyer his investigative instincts come into play and he sees a way to get himself back in the game. The only problem is the real and present danger that the fire presents not just to the investigation but to the investigators themselves.
Delargy uses the fire to both hamper and put a ticking clock on the investigation. Kennard has trouble interviewing witnesses who are also fire fighters as he is seen as interfering with efforts to save the town. His desire to see justice done is seen as secondary to the need to combat the fire. And, honestly, many readers might agree. Given some of his suspects are on the front line of a major bushfire it is unclear why he has to go to that front line to find/interview them rather than waiting for the fire to be under control. But it does add a lot of tension to the plotting and places Kennard in some seriously dangerous situations.
Alex Kennard joins a long line of damaged but solid police detectives. His backstory emerges slowly and gives some additional motivation for him to prove himself to his colleagues. Delargy manages to capture the impact of his PTSD well – readers may not agree when he flies off the handle but Delargy makes sure they understand the underlying trauma.
But that said, the best crime fiction is never about the crime or its resolution. It is about the world that the author builds and reveals through the investigation. And in this respect Into the Flames delivers. Delargy gives a genuine feeling of being in a small rural town under threat from bushfire, the impacts on ordinary people and of the types of people who go to the front lines of these disasters and of the challenges that they face. And he does this by upping the level of difficulty, putting a murder investigation in the middle of the action.
Overall Into the Flames is an atmospheric and engaging if sometimes deliberately stressful read. Every character – cops, suspects, townspeople – is under threat throughout the story. Layering a murder investigation on top of that, even a meandering one like this one, adds neatly to the level of tension.

I’m sorry to say I really struggled with this one. As the wife of an ex-firefighter, I find it implausible that the solving of the crime, even of murder, would ever take precedence over the efforts to fight the rampaging bushfire, and the safety of the community.
I really couldn’t connect with any of the characters, as there was little depth to them. Way too many repetitive passages too, presumably for padding, which is a pet hate of mine. Not for me.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

A crime mystery set in the Australian Blue Mountains during a bush fire.. I like Australian noir but the slow narrative and the underwritten characters did not hold my interest.

I m afraid that I found this book to be slow moving - even the fire - and so it has not been an enjoyable read for me.
The characters all seemed to have their own agenda and were not likeable in any way.
For some reason I am never drawn to stories set in Australia, and this one has just upheld that.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. A murder occurs in Rislake a sleepy town in the Blue Mountains of Australia. Just one problem, preserving the evidence as the house where the dead woman Tracey Hilmeyer, is found is surrounded by bush fires. Her husband Russell is a firefighter. Could he be the killer?

Detective Alex Kennard, has transferred from Sydney to the Blue Mountains after suffering PTSD from an incident he had been on. He is not endearing himself to his new work mates either, when he punches one of them at a barbecue which was supposed to help him get together with his new team.

DS Layton is sent to help him on the murder case, initially he doesn't take to her as she is a by the book Detective who wants to climb the ladder fast. But gradually they begin to work better together, despite her checking if he is ok frequently.

Who is the killer? Husband is always first to be looked at, does he have a solid alibi? Then there is the sister and brother in law, no love lost there? Or what about all the photos she has of men? Could she have been having an affair? Who has been supplying the opioid drugs found in her car. Can Kennard solve this before the whole house goes up in flames?

This is an interesting police procedural, there are bits where the pace slows down a little. But then as you get towards the last hundred pages it starts to pick up, with a few twists and turns. Can you solve who killed Tracey?

The characters are believable, relatable. The plot flows, as they go to the house where the fire is burning and tarmac is melting popping car tires, you can feel that atmosphere, suffocating smoke and heat. I liked Alex Kennard and gradually enjoyed the repartee he had with Layton, she seemed to know how to bring him down if she felt he was getting stressed. Overall a good read, as they try and catch a killer.

Thank you to #netgalley and @SimonschusterUK for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest, and unbiased review, all thoughts and opinions are my own and not influenced in any way.

I was immediately drawn to this book by the striking cover. Mother nature desperately fighting itself. Bushfire vs Land. Then I read the plot. Another battle, Man vs Bushfire. A tense and taught crime thriller that pits the stern DS Kennard against the ever spreading bushfire in a race against time to save evidence and solve a brutal murder.

This is my first James Delargy novel, and I can assure you. It won't be my last! From the first page I was gripped, and with every chapter I was kept second guessing as to who the killer coukd be. Even until the very last chapter, i was still expecting more twists and turns.

Delargy writes with vivid descriptives, making you feel like you're there. Investigating. Battling the elements with the characters themselves. A crime thriller that leaves me wanting to seek out more works by this exciting author.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Disgraced Detective Kennard is assisting at a bushfire, and finds the body of missing Tracey Hilmeyer, who has been murdered. Tracey is the wife of a firefighter and the crime scene is in the path of the fire, so Kennard, with his colleague Layton, has a race against time to try and solve the murder before the evidence is destroyed. Kennard keeps going back into the danger zone looking for evidence and trying to arrest suspects, which became a bit repetitive. I found it hard to credit that the murder investigation would take priority over the danger from the bushfire. None of the characters were particularly sympathetic. OK.

A blistering novel that, like the wildfire at its heart, creeps ever closer to the reader. Delargy’s prose is, at times, suffocating in its elegance and his depictions of character are searingly honest.
This is a brilliantly plotted novel that packs a powerful punch.

As the title suggests, flames play a major part in this murder mystery. The flawed main character has to deal with solving a murder in the middle of a bush fire. Overall, an entertaining read in an unusual setting.

This crime is made interesting by setting it in the middle of a fierce bushfire that is threatening both the town and the house where the crime took place. This adds a level of pressure and urgency.

Otherwise it's a pretty standard, potentially clichéd, police investigation. Grumpy investigator sent to a country town after PTSD from something that happened in the city. Young up-and-coming offsider. A range of country-town characters.

Despite the narrative pressure from a bushfire, I found some of it a bit slow and some parts unnecessary. Knowing the area fairly well, there were a couple of trips that seemed to take a lot less time than they actually would have; and a forensic team that arrived faster that would have been likely. But you're only going to know that if you know the actual geography.

An atmospheric Australian outback thriller, set in the Blue Mountains as a huge bushfire hits. Let’s be fair, can’t get much more of an Aussie setting then that!
The descriptive writing regarding the fire and the landscape is great. Sets up a real atmosphere for when the victim’s body is finally found.
I must say I did not find Detective Kennard even slightly likeable which kinda made me like the book less. And the whole crime scene investigation in the midst of a fire is a bit out there.
But overall book was a well paced who funnily with a free twists along the way.

I've been meaning to try this author for quite some time now. I love both an Australian setting and a natural disaster element in my thrillers, so of course I couldn't resist the premise of James Delargy's newest story Into The Flames. I mean, a murder investigation in the middle of a bushfire?! That definitely is a way to guarantee an intense and dangerous situation with a fight against the flames as well as the killer... Against expectations, Into The Flames fell surprisingly flat for me though. I'll try to explain why below.

First of all I have to say that I did enjoy the Australian setting, and especially the vivid descriptions of the bushfire stood out to me. You could almost feel the heat coming off the page, and the whole situation added so much urgency to the story. This is probably why it was so surprising to discover that the pace was considerably slow, and there was something about the writing style and pace that just didn't flow naturally. It might have been that the style was too descriptive, and it might have been the constant repetitions of certain facts, but the fact is that it took me a lot longer than expected to read Into The Flames. In fact, I caught myself starting to skimread multiple times, and that is never a good sign.

Part of my struggles also had to do with the main character Detective Kennard. To say that I didn't like him was an understatement, and as a result it was hard to find the motivation to keep reading. His character felt too cliche and the constant references to the failed case that made him move to Rislake got old really fast. I wasn't a fan of Tracey either, and as a result her flashback chapters didn't offer any relief. On top of this the plot was quite character driven despite the urgent bushfire situation, and this made it harder to overcome the whole unlikeable character issue.

I also wondered up to what point it was actually credible to have a murder investigation in the middle of a bushfire, and especially when the fire is basically already at the crime scene. To make things even less credible, the investigation itself seemed to move SO fast with tests being done in record time and clues being revealed so easily. It was also pretty obvious who was behind it all, and the other suspects that were offered along the way weren't all that satisfying. There is no doubt that those final chapters were pretty intense, but again I just don't think that the whole situation is all that credible. I can suspend my disbelief if I'm enjoying the story, but by then I had encountered too many issues to be able to convince myself to do so.

I had such high hopes for this story, but in the end Into The Flames was rather lackluster for me and mostly left me cold despite such a fantastic premise. I'm wondering if his writing just isn't for me... If you don't mind unlikeable characters, a slower pace and a less than believable plot, you might just enjoy Into The Flames a whole lot more.

A pacy thriller with a murder mystery set within a raging fire, where evidence is as precarious as life.

The characters are intriguing and the book fairly rocks along. Descriptively well written and some twists and turns along the way.

A fast, addictive read, not my favourite from this author but wildly entertaining none the less.

In 'Into the Flames' James Delargy creates a vividly realised environment: with the small town of Rislake at threat of total destruction from a bushfire. The murder investigation of the young woman who's body is found in one of the houses under risk might be a 'slow burn' affair, but the flames that threaten to destroy the evidence and cover the murderer's track are anything but.
There was a whole lot to like about this book and if I say it was an 'old fashioned' murder case I mean that in the best possible sense: the author is sure footed enough not to try to amp up the 'death count' or throw twist after twist into a story that didn't need it: the atmosphere and the characters are more than enough to make this a fully satisfying story and while the 'cop looking for redemption from himself' might be a character we've seen before, this was an interesting and not overly 'dramatic' examination of his demons.
Like the author's previous works this really did give a sense of place and environment: in this case the growing threat of not just getting too close to the truth of the case, but being unable to give up on it despite the environment that (cliched as it might sound) a true character in the book.
Very much recommended.

Time is running out as a destructive wildfire is heading towards town. Detective Kennard and two firemen drive towards the approaching flames in search for one of the fireman's missing wife. The body of his wife is found at home as flames begin to lick the side of the house. Kennard can see instantly that this was not an accident but in fact murder!

As all resources are in use evacuating the town, how do you go about investigating a murder? And how do you go about catching the one responsible?

A good read where time really is running out.

A small town in the Blue Mountains is undergoing a rapid evacuation as bushfires come dangerously close. It's all hands on deck in this race against time.

But to Detective Kennard's horror, the attempt to locate a fire fighter's missing wife leads to the unwelcome discovery of her corpse at the bottom of a staircase, in a manner that makes it clear she was murdered.

How do you find a murderer in the midst of an evacuation attempt? And with the lives of the living still at risk, can you even justify the attempt to solve this murder?

This is a gripping, fast-paced story pitting a damaged detective against an elusive murderer amidst an unfolding crisis. An entertaining read.