A Slow Fire Burning

by Paula Hawkins

First published 2019

A corpse floats in a London houseboat, and three women circle the crime like moths to flame. The victim's aunt mourns while wrestling with family guilt. A neighbor watches from her window, nursing old wounds and newer grudges. A third woman appears from nowhere, her motives unclear. Police probe the death, but each woman guards her own version of truth. The aunt knew the dead man's troubled history. The neighbor heard things she pretends she didn't. The stranger claims connections that don't add up. Their stories twist around each other, revealing how past violence echoes into present danger. Trust dissolves as each woman realizes the others know more than they admit. The investigation forces them to confront not just what happened that night, but what they've been running from for years.

Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller

Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking

Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator

Setting: London

Period: 21st-century

400 pages · Paperback · Riverhead Books

Content warnings: death

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