FIRE SEASON

In 1889, a fire in Spokane Falls, a thriving town in the territory of Washington, provides opportunities for two unscrupulous men and one ethically ambivalent woman.

On the verge of statehood—which, in the thoughts of one character, will lessen the desperation that makes a citizenry susceptible to fraud—Washington Territory is ripe for exploitation by three drifters who, in this extremely pre-regulation universe, can endlessly reinvent themselves. Barton Heydale, a banker who came to Spokane Falls to escape a dismissive father in Portland, embezzles to get even with the townsfolk, who dismiss him even more. Roslyn Beck, a prostitute Barton visits regularly, is rescued by him after the catastrophic fire which begins in the hotel where she lives and works. However, she doesn’t see it as rescue once she sobers up from the absinthelike thrall of the hooch known as “Mud Drink.” Faux fire investigator Quake Auchenbaucher (an alias earned when he masqueraded as a seismologist) engineers Barton’s downfall and also attempts, with more honorable intentions, to rescue Roslyn, who is having none of that, either. Roslyn is not so much the protagonist as the tonal center of a book whose key is unclear. She is “a certain kind of woman.” A witch? A clairvoyant? A seeker? Or just aware that she is always second-guessing herself when far less talented men are not? The author’s main preoccupation is not with people but with motifs and issues: What is consent? Can good intentions redeem? Is theft in aid of good works moral? The prose is incantatory. Locations veer from the frontier precursor of Spokane, which Krow portrays with the sure hand of a local, to Portland and San Francisco. A prologue and unrelated “interludes” underscore the novel’s themes, superfluously it seems. The characters weigh their options, internally and in dialogue—in some sections just dialogue, like a script without stage directions—but seem to care very little about outcomes. Outcomes, the reader gathers, aren’t really the point.

A novel that makes peace with uncertainty.