*******
House on Fire
by Joseph Finder
2020 /381 pages
read by Holter Graham
10h 9m
rating –  A+ / crime thriller
(NIck Heller #4)
******* 

Most of us have heard of Oxycontin and the Sackler family which owns Perdue Pharma.  Well, House on Fire is a rip-roaring yarn which uses that scenario as a jumping off place. 

Of course there are lots of differences including the ending, but the overall picture of things is the very similar.  There’s the family’s promotion of a drug, Oxydone in this case, which promises much and delivers addiction.  It also delivers big money to the family which developed it.  And then there’s the art community, protests and sibling rivalry.  Of course, Finder denies the connection. 

Nick Heller is a retired Green Beret now working as a private investigator out of an office in Boston when he receives word that his old army buddy has died of an oxycontin addiction.  At Sean’s funeral a young woman introduces herself to Nick and says she wants someone to look into the Oxydone industry and Kimball Pharma which is mostly run by her father, Conrad KImball.  It has killed too many people she says and it’s a fraud.  Community protests have started.  

So starts Heller’s investigation into the murky waters of  the drug industry. 

Heller is a kick, an action hero with a brain and the action is pretty much nonstop – sometimes overshadowing character development and suspense.  But it’s a fun read – a page-turner.