Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Tahoe Blowup by Todd Borg

Tahoe Blowup by Todd Borg (Thriller Press, 2001) is the second of his series about private investigator Owen McKenna. The local fire department hires Owen to find the arsonist who is setting fires in the tinder-dry forests around Lake Tahoe. Anonymous letters are arriving that describe the scope and size of each fire, claiming they are being set because of crimes against the environment. The first one comes far too close to Owen’s cabin and he is understandably taking a great deal of personal interest in finding the firebug. He uses his huge harlequin Great Dane and a trained search-and-rescue dog to look for traces of the person who set the fires. They find instead a body, which may be the arsonist caught in his own fire. Identifying the victim took some time, and in the meanwhile, more fires are set.

I am always intrigued with books that teach me something along with giving me a good story to read. In this volume discussions with the fire department chief and the Forest Service staff give Borg the opportunity to trot out some facts about forest fires. I did not know that forest fires travel up a mountain, not down.  Crown fires that involve the tops of trees are more dangerous than fires on the ground. The use of fire suppression as opposed to controlled burns is a long-running point of contention among environmentalists, the Fire Service, and others who have a vested interest in forests. Both sides of the argument are thoroughly aired here.

I like this animal-loving private investigator whom I discovered last year, when I read that Borg is this year’s toastmaster at Left Coast Crime. I find authors who like a city or area so much they create a fictional universe in it appealing. Think of Les Roberts and Cleveland, Kathleen George and Pittsburgh, Philip R. Craig and Martha’s Vineyard. Borg makes the mountains and the forests around Lake Tahoe sound immensely attractive as a year-round residential site, not just a vacation resort.

It’s always good news to find another series, and it looks like there are a dozen or so more in this one that I have yet to read. These books have won the Ben Franklin Award for Best Mystery of the Year, made Library Journal's Top 5 Mysteries of the Year list, and found their way onto Amazon's Mystery/Thriller and Private Investigator Bestseller Lists multiple times. Strong recommendations!

·         Paperback: 320 pages
·         Publisher: Thriller Press (September 1, 2001)
·         Language: English
·         ISBN-10: 193129612X
·         ISBN-13: 978-1931296120

Aubrey Hamilton © 2018

  

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.