BENEATH THE ASHES

The morning after the pub burns down and a local drunk is killed, Alaskan musher Jessie Arnold (Murder on the Yukon Quest, 1999, etc.) gets a call from Anne Holman, whom Jessie knew ten years ago, asking for help and a place to stay. When Jessie picks her up, she realizes that Anne has undergone some ugly changes. Even before arson investigator Mike Tatum identifies Anne as a suspect in another fire that killed two boys, Jessie knows Anne is hiding something. But is Anne lying because she’s a victim of her husband’s sadistic abuse or because she’s a pathological murderer? When Tatum’s overbearing obsession with her houseguest provokes Jessie, despite her misgivings, into helping Anne on a mysterious errand, they find a ten-year-old corpse, and Jessie hopes the worst is over. The night they return, however, a fire levels Jessie’s cabin, and Anne disappears in the uproar. A few nights later, Jessie is drugged, abducted, then returned to her bed. Another fire, another death, and then Tatum is found dead, shot with Jessie’s gun. Now a suspect herself, Jessie marches off to confront the arsonist. The showdown, involving yet another fire, snowmobiles riding to the rescue, twisted marital devotion, and self-immolation, does little to clear up all the death and destruction that preceded it.

One wonders what Jessie did to deserve this melodramatic trial by fire, in which everyone but her dogs gets burned. It does leave Jessie ready, however, to rebuild her cabin—ready, perhaps, for adventures that are a little less over the top.