STARRED Book Review: The Fire Inside

Reviewed by Eric Mayrhofer

With authority, thrills, and suspense, B.A. Colella burns down the house with The Fire Inside.

Scorching heat. The blinding red and orange light blazing over the cracks and groans of buildings surrendering to combustion. With such trappings, it’s hard to see a more naturally tense and thrilling scene than a fire emergency, so B.A. Colella’s new book The Fire Inside already has a massive mark in its favor.

However, it’s the softer sides of the first responder life, the hero’s emotional struggles, the balance between heroic and villainous perspectives, and the expertise in the subject matter that make Colella’s novel burn bright.

Lieutenant Tony Moretti is new to the Monongohela Area Fire Authority (MAFA), fresh off a stint fighting West Coast forest fires and ready to help the Pennsylvania firefighting team with his leadership. He isn’t there out of a love for rundown Pittsburgh suburbs, though. A crisis from his pre-forest-fighting years still haunts him. It’s a splinter in his mind and a wedge between him and his ex-wife Allie, even if they still care for each other deeply. Tony may be using the new gig as more of a bandaid than a new beginning, but when an arsonist arrives on the scene, testing the MAFA crew and endangering the lives of residents in Tony’s newfound community, he may just have to confront—and work through—his trauma to survive.

When I say this book shows a softer side to first responders, what I mean is that Tony is a wonderfully three-dimensional protagonist. It would be easy to paint him as a gruff, emotionally mute action hero, a la Alan Ritchson in Reacher, but the book takes a more nuanced approach. More than only a firefighter, Tony has an acquired taste for Springsteen. He’s got an understandable aversion to therapy and an endearing case of professional performance anxiety; more than once, readers see him give himself quick, silent pep talks like, “I hope you’re up for the challenge,” part fear, part admonishment, part girding himself to persevere through the hard work ahead.

While he’s out on a day off, rekindling an interest in digital photography, Tony meets Terrell, a part-time delivery boy for a local grocer. Sensing talent and curiosity, Tony offers to train Terrell if he works as the new MAFA station photographer. Yes, we do get to see Tony indulge in his paternal instincts—“Not for the first time,” Colella writes as Tony speaks with Terrell, “he wondered what kind of father he would have made”— but readers also get to see another pathway forming, one that creates tension by slowly connecting Tony to the arsonist setting up the biggest firefights and inner turmoils he’ll face.

The book deploys and ramps up that tension masterfully, making its 300-ish pages fly by. One way is through a use of alternating perspectives that fans of Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes will love, as Colella bounces between Tony, a volunteer firefighter at odds with the lieutenant, and Dylan Ross, the arsonist who sees his fires as a service, clearing out blighted land in a dying town town to make way for something new. The jump in points of view will make readers wonder how the heroes in conflict will come together to save the day, and maybe even biting their nails over whether Dylan’s bleak ideas are right or wrong.

But the book also keeps audiences on the edge of their seats with deft language that at once commands clear authority over its subject matter and chilling visualization. Colella, a firefighter himself with 35 years of experience, infuses The Fire Inside with intricate knowledge gained through hard work, making each drill, knee walk, and hosing technique spring to vivid life (I can’t stress enough what a lived-in texture and sense of trust the use of firefighting vocabulary and familiarity with emergency and firehouse imagery provides).

At the same time, the book knows when it needs to shift from technical accuracy to emotional resonance, especially in its emergency set-pieces. First, it sets a believable scene by describing how a probationary firefighter successfully deploys a Z pattern spray to put out an apartment fire, then immediately delivers the gut punch of discovering “blackened, skinless fingertips, jutting out from under the bed frame.” It’s an enthralling magic trick Colella and The Fire Inside perform over and over again.

All of these excellent qualities go into a thrilling adventure that’s not just about the dangerous fires kindling in a town that’s seen better days. The Fire Inside takes its diverse perspectives, taut suspense, and tender moments to explore how we rightly—or wrongly—keep the fires of hope alive, whether it’s for our own ability to overcome the past or our community’s ability to thrive through change in the days and years ahead.

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