Robak's Fire

Sometimes, when you want to catch the people who break the law, you have to bend the law a little yourself. Just ask Don Robak, Joe L Hensley's sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued legal eagle who now returns to face his hottest case yet.

In the town of Drewville, a man named Avery Benjamin has died in a house fire. Or so claim his second wife, Hilda, and his two sons, Eric and Fritz. But the insurance company, which faces a multi-million-dollar settlement, suspects an elaborate scam, and calls Robak in to investigate.

The local residents, however, prove reluctant to cooperate, and Robak quickly surmises that Drewville is actually run by the Benjamin clan. One of those places where everyone knows everyone else---and no knows the truth---on a very short fuse. It seems too many people have too much to lose. And several wouldn't mind losing Don Robak for good.

In no time at all, the cool-headed counselor is felling the heat from all sides: from Hilda, the "grieving" widow, who's now taken up with local law officer Billy Joe House, from Eric and Fritz, the mean-spirited Benjamin boys, who'd love to teach the lawyer a lesson about playing with fire; even from Avery's first wife, Cherry, definitely a woman with a score to settle...

Fortunately, Don Robak knows how to fight fire with fire. And he's about to show all of Drew County that the flames of truth cannot be snuffed out with a blanket of lies.

This is #8 in A Don Robak Mystery.