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The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire Audiobook
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Publisher Description
The true story of the most devastating wildfire in Australian history and the search for the man who started it.
What kind of person would deliberately start a firestorm? What kind of mind?
On the scorching February day in 2009 that became known as Black Saturday, a man lit two fires in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. In the Valley, where the rates of crime were the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to the police as firebugs. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man they didn't know.
The Arsonist takes readers on the hunt for this man, and inside the strange puzzle of his mind. This book is also the story of fire in Australia, and of a community that owed its existence to that very element. The command of fire has defined and sustained us as a species--understanding its abuse will shape our future.
A powerful true-crime thriller written with Hooper's trademark lyric detail and nuance, The Arsonist is a reminder that in an age of fire, all of us are gatekeepers.
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“Hooper drops the reader inside the Black Saturday brushfires to terrifying effect, then masterfully shifts from the physical realm to the existential—namely, how and why a particular evil manifests. Visceral and terrifying.”
— Maureen Calahan, author of American Predator
Quotes
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“A brilliant and moving book.”
— Australian Book Review -
“Hooper gives a cool appraisal of a hot issue…even-handed and nuanced.”
— The Guardian (London) -
“A fascinating real-life thriller, police procedural, intense sociological study, and the long-overdue story of fire in Australia…Powerful and nuanced…In Hooper’s sure hands the grimmest details become exquisite imagery.”
— Sydney Morning Herald -
“A gripping meditation on a tragedy whose ultimate causes implicate an entire society.”
— New York Times Book Review
Awards
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New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
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About Chloe Hooper
Chloe Hooper was born in Melbourne in 1973. She was educated at the University of Melbourne and as a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York. Her first novel, A Child’s Book of True Crime, was a New York Times Notable Book and short-listed for the Orange Prize. The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island won the Victorian, New South Wales, West Australian, and Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, as well as the John Button Prize for Political Writing, and a Ned Kelly Award for crime writing. She lives in Australia.
About Cat Gould
Cat Gould grew up in Sydney, Australia, and after extensive travel moved to the United States in 1990. A classically trained actress with a BFA from Southern Oregon University, she has performed in many regional productions.