The Boy in the Burning House

14-year-old Jim Hawkins’ Dad, Hub, vanished mysteriously and completely a year ago. Jim suffered an emotional near collapse but is learning to stonewall all thoughts of his father’s fate when he meets Ruth Rose, unstable stepdaughter of the flamboyant and charismatic local preacher, Father Fisher.

Ruth’s unshakeable conviction that Fisher is implicated in Hub’s disappearance and probable death first alarms and then convinces Jim, as he pieces together a seemingly unrelated series of events to reach a chilling conclusion and the revelation that the popular preacher is a dangerous and criminally determined man who has encouraged speculation about Ruth Rose’s mental state in order to discredit her accusations. When Jim becomes the object of Fisher’s deluded attentions he must literally fight for his life and for his belief in his father’s integrity.

This award-winning book shows its mettle as Wynne-Jones builds and releases tension in an utterly credible way – the more unsettling because its central premise explores the sanity spectrum in ways which are all too familiar to anyone who has endured grief or ridicule or manipulation at the very hands of those whose role it is to protect and nurture. This is a gripping read and a thoughtful, realistic and sustained examination of trust, guilt and betrayal.