An ambitious firefighter hunts a notorious arsonist in the Edgar Award–winning true crime story the New York Times calls "stranger than fiction." From Joseph Wambaugh, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of such classics as The Onion Field and The Choirboys, comes the extraordinary story of the chase for the "Pillow Pyro," called the most prolific American arsonist of the twentieth century.   Growing up in Los Angeles, John Orr idolized...

Fin Finnegan, a San Diego police detective and wannabe actor heading straight for a midlife meltdown, is assigned a routine truck theft that turns into a toxic chemical spill, setting off a bizarre chain reaction of death and murder on both sides of the Mexican border. Fin is forced to team up with Nell Salter, a sexy female investigator, as well as an equally fetching US Navy investigator who wants to learn all that Fin can teach her-and that's saying...