The Fires of Edgarville - Hardcover

Craig Danner's first novel, Himalayan Dhaba, won the 2002 ­Pacific Northwest Book Award. He lives in his native Oregon with his wife and two sons, who are encouraging him to write a children's novel.

The Fires of Edgarville is not really about solving the mystery of a serial arsonist. It's not really about uncovering the truth behind old family secrets and lies. Or rather, it's about so much more. This is a mystery novel, yes, and a page turner, but one that engages authentically with a dishonorable part of our past, that conjures brilliantly the effects of dementia, that tackles unflinchingly the difficult terrain of families, prejudice, guilt, deception--all the while in fluid, singing prose. I was spellbound. --Molly Gloss, author of The Jump-Off Creek and The Hearts of Horses

The Fires of Edgarville is a daring and enthralling novel with the power to surprise anyone who picks it up. Craig Joseph Danner takes a tiny Northwestern town and two unlikely protagonists -- a defamed Japanese-American doctor and an irascible senile woman -- and somehow turns out high drama. This novel is slender and fast-paced, but the story is rich and artfully woven with dazzling crescendos of action and original characters in search of elusive truths. --Jim Lynch, author of The Highest Tide

Craig Danner has done it again. The Fires of Edgarville is a can't-stop-reading book. A story of mystery, betrayal, bigotry, sex, love, and forgiveness. Books like this are the reason I read. --Alison Clement, author of Pretty Is As Pretty Does and Twenty Questions