The Truth About Fire

by Betsy Hartmann

Surveillance becomes a dangerous two-way street for the women at the center of this powerful literary debut probing the underworld of neo-Nazism in America's heartland. Told through the braided narratives of two women, who unwittingly hold each other's lives in their hands, this suspenseful novel reveals the explosive results when sinister secrets are sought by advocates of tolerance, and personal secrets stolen from them are turned into weapons of hate. Gillian Grace—a professor of modern German history, mother of a biracial teenage daughter, and political researcher into modern fascism—has long promoted pluralism in a multicultural world. Meanwhile, Lucy Wirth is trapped within the extremist realm of the Sons of the Shepherd, a sect with ties to German neo-Nazis. Gillian agrees to help graduate student Michael Landis infiltrate the Sons, whom he suspects in the murder of a Native American friend. But soon Gillian herself becomes an object of their surveillance, for Lucy has been coerced into an affair with the Sons' pastoral leader, then blackmailed into spying on Gillian and her daughter. Through the dangerous journey that follows, the truths of each woman's life poignantly resonate in the world of the other. At stake is the outcome of a biological terror plot that the Sons of the Shepherd are preparing to launch. Gillian and Lucy must choose whether to change their role from passive observers to engaged participants in the unfolding story, so that they may prevent their own lives, and countless others, from burning up in the Sons' flames of terror.

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published March 10, 2002

About the author

Author, educator, and activist Betsy Hartmann addresses critical national and global challenges in both her fiction and nonfiction writing. Her recently released novel, Last Place Called Home, is a political thriller about the opioid crisis and war on drugs in a small Massachusetts mill town. It is a finalist in the 2024 International Book Awards mystery/suspense category and a finalist in the 2024 American Fiction Awards political thriller category. Readers' Favorite calls it a "beautiful literary creation with a setting that feels like a a character in its own right."

Betsy is also the author of the feminist classic Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control and of The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War and Our Call to Greatness. She is the co-author of A Quiet Violence: View from a Bangladesh Village. Eerily prescient, her previous political thrillers, The Truth about Fire and Deadly Election, explore the threat the Far Right poses to American democracy.

Betsy did her undergraduate degree at Yale University and her PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is professor emerita of Development Studies at Hampshire College, where she taught for twenty-eight years. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[c2 cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this could go in the Women's Fiction Thriller category. The author is a competent writer but I never felt like the majority of the main characters had chemistry. I've certainly read books where the plot was more contrived, but I also didn't feel that this one was completely believable. 2.8 might be a more accurate reflection of how I felt about it.

[Adra Cole Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great read!

From first page to last, I couldn't put this book down. Just be careful if you read before bed; it may give you nightmares. It's certainly one of the best books I've read in a long time that'll make you re-think about life and security, as well as find a new appreciation for family.