The Burner
Racism, Revenge, and the Wrath of God
Welcome to Sunny Palms Nursing Home, where southern hospitality breeds racism, rage and hot revenge. Revenge so fierce that even the Good Lord's mighty powers can’t stop hell's blazing embers from moving into the building and taking up residency. Right there among the geriatric patients who are strapped to metal chairs and hidden behind the locked doors of C Ward.
Was it the black orderly who torched those twelve people to death? Or was it the bigoted nurse's dictatorship? Was it both the orderly and the nurse? But what about the evangelical elderly patient whose mind tripped over the edge of reality in the throes of raving lunacy?
One patient and a child know who started the fire. But are they even still alive?
* * *
Carlyle Neuse takes a night-shift job at Sunny Palms Nursing Home while he attends college to become an RN. He befriends patients in the locked psych ward.
Soon the entire nursing home burns to the ground, and a dozen people are dead.
Carlyle is thrown into prison for arson and murder, where he's tortured by inmates, guards, and the jail psychiatrist.
Somewhere three patients and a 12-year old girl know the truth. Can Carlyle find any of them before it's too late?
Or are they all dead, too?
* * *
Click below to hear brief blurb on The Burner
Review from Writer’s Digest Annual Book Awards from another of Hallas' legal thrillers,
No Other Medicine:
“In this fast-paced novel, all is not as it should be at Parkwest Pediatric Hospital and patients are being disfigured. Nurse Marilyn Pelletier is desperate to find out who is doing this and determined to prevent further tragedy and protect her patients.
The author invites us into the inner workings—and failings—of the medical profession and presents them from an insider’s perspective. A great insight into the dichotomy that is medicine; the god complex vs. humility, the ability to save lives and to take lives, and ego vs. servant’s heart just to note a few.
Nurse Marilyn teams up with a dying lawyer and an outcast surgeon and the three of them work together to bring down Dr. Vincent and keep him from disfiguring any more children.
These three characters are fleshed out and well developed. I was pleased that the plot took us past beyond just capturing the bad guy and into the court room.
To take on two such complex systems (medical and legal) and capture both with such authenticity and accuracy in such detail, and at the same time do so in such a vivid and engaging manner takes a great deal of talent and skill.
A really good read!”