Review – Mortal Fire

When does a visiting professorship turn into a life-threatening experience? That happens in C. F. Dunn’s novel Mortal Fire when Cambridge history professor Emma D’Eresby accepts a visiting professorship at an elite university in Maine. But Emma herself has unusual interests: not only is her specialty the study of medieval torture, but she is obsessed with the fragment of a seventeenth-century journal her late grandfather gave her—and the Maine university library holds the complete journal.

The instance of her arrival at that university presents a sense of foreboding, one that increases as a surprising number of faculty members want relationships with Emma that intrude on her privacy. Historian Elena Smalova’s persistent match-making, though well-intentioned, only makes Emma uncomfortable. But the twice-divorced mathematician Sam Wiesner won’t take “No” for an answer, even to lengths bordering on assault. Worst of all, the sinister English professor Kort Stahl thinks his own obsession with torture gives him a special possessive relationship with Emma. Though without clear evidence, Emma suspects him of committing attacks on two local women. Yet as her fear and tension grow, Emma finds herself attracted against her will to the university physician, the handsome but elusive Dr. Matthew Lynes, whose strangeness and evasiveness brood over all that he does. Each encounter with these varied characters leaves Emma more uncertain and more apprehensive until the increasing tension explodes in a chilling climax.

C.F. Dunn skillfully uses the opposed motivations of her characters to build suspense as her narrative progresses. Yet her readers are rewarded by a richness of knowledge beyond mere suspense. Emma’s scholarship goes beyond simple knowledge of torture, penetrating to the often-altruistic motives of the torturers. And the author’s accurate knowledge of poets like John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughan adds a subtle depth to the narrative. But the best news is that there is more to come: Dunn’s debut novel is the first of a series in which we will follow the completion of Emma’s quest to learn the secret of the mysterious journal.