A subtle theme of games runs through the Fireraisers – chess; golf – but I suspect a more apt leitmotif would be football (soccer or rugby as it’s known in North America). Occasionally beset by hooliganism, very British, yet increasingly international, with undertones of the working class yet as British as “God Save the Queen”, the Fireraisers is punctuated by riveting descriptions of high and low society, battles and life at sea, near drownings, of simple fisher folk, strong women, a sly prostitute, Dundee in Scotland, the American Civil War impacting Britain's economics, and a limitless store of anecdotes from the backrooms of shady London financiers to French munitions fueling the American Civil War. All this serves as a backdrop to the trials and victories of the tenacious Sergeant George Watters and his ineffable Marie, whose gift of a small New Testament was to become such a comforting testimony to love. The most confusing of clues and riddles surround the hapless Sergeant as he pursues the puzzle of several fires set in Dundee’s mills, as well as a rather grotesque murder in Calcutta on the cargo ship Lady of Blackness. How are they connected and was it really murder or an unfortunate accident? The story escalates quickly until it is wrapped up neatly at the end with nary a stray stitch in the ball but a couple of rather convenient coincidences. Our hero is left, we hope, wiser, yet more battle-scarred at the end, after enduring the ups and downs of high society, high finance, and lowdown dirty scoundrels. There’s a sort of tongue-in-the-cheek dry humor throughout the book, as well, against a vast backdrop of international politics, finances, and human nature. Historical notes at the end left me wishing for more information about the little-talked- about interference by Britain and France in the American Civil War on the side of the Southern Confederacy, the design of ships in the 1800s, the class system in the UK in the nineteenth century, and the role of Canada and why the White House was painted white after the British set fire to it in 1812! I was intrigued by the prologue and the rangy American, whose undoubtedly most famous name was never mentioned. A deep faith permeates this book.