The Girl Who Put Out the Fire by D.K. Janotta
It’s the early 21st century and the dot com bubble has yet to burst. Businesses are making money hand over fist, raking in indecent amounts of money. Leo Foxe, a businessman ruthless in his determination to avenge his father’s infidelity to his mother, is determined to create an empire far bigger than that his father had built and lost.
To accomplish his goal, Foxe forgoes hiring more expensive Europeans, choosing instead the far cheaper labor of eastern Indians. Sensing a news story told from the perspective of out of work Europeans, reporters Jerry Peterson and Kari Ertenmann are hot on his trail. Getting the scoop and ready to submit his article, at the last minute the publication decided to give another reporter the story. Soon after, Jerry, and his article, disappear.
Having fallen deeply in love with Jerry, Kari is distraught by his absence. After some time passes she discovers he has returned to the U.S. An eventual visit to locate and win him back find him terribly weak and ill - too ill to return to Europe with her and continue his investigative report. Instead, he sends Kari back to follow the story.
Alongside her is reporter-in-training Anton von Flamberge, Kari assigned as his mentor. In the course of their investigation the two hear stories of desperation told by European workers passed over for the exploitation of cheaper, often inexperienced, Indian laborers. Someone is illegally importing Indian workers, paying them cut-rate salaries, bypassing the law.
And then people start dying, the first one of the eastern Indian workers in Europe illegally. Soon after, Kari’s assistant Anton shows her an obituary. It was for Jerry Peterson, reported to have died in a fire back in the U.S.
The love of her life gone, Kari and Jerry, undaunted by the growing violence, re-double their efforts to find an answer to the deadly mystery, danger close on their heels.
The Girl Who Put Out the Fire is a well-plotted thriller. The prose is assured, the characterizations strong. The story could have been a bit tighter, the book made more lean and suspenseful, but as it stands the story pulls off a realistic romance set against the background of the sort of corporate greed that’s been making the news over a decade. A compelling read.
- File Size: 527 KB
- Print Length: 367 pages
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00BX2T8VQ
[Source: Review copy.]
