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This page lists novels that feature the Washington state based fire chief Mac Fontana.

Black Hearts and Slow Dancing

Earl Emerson

1988

A Mac Fontana novel.

"Unwillingly substituting for the sheriff of Staircase, a town in Washington, Mac Fontana decides the job is more attractive when alluring April Smith asks him to locate her missing lover, Steve Zajac. The search ends with Fontana finding Zajac's corpse and losing April, whom he traces to Seattle where the dead man had been a fire fighter. It's easy to get a lead on April, whose real name is Sumner, but hard and dangerous to investigate powerful citizens who have hired guns ready to kill anyone threatening their profits from arson and other crimes."

Help Wanted: Orphans Preferred

Earl Emerson

1990

A Mac Fontana novel.

"Fire chief and part-time sheriff Mac Fontana is puzzled when members of his Staircase, Washington's fire department are targeted by a homicidal maniac; his involvement with the wife of a paramedic leads to terrible revelations."

Morons and Madmen

Earl Emerson

1993

A Mac Fontana novel.

"When a female fire fighter is harassed by her peers for surviving a Seattle fire where her three male colleagues died, Fire Chief Mac Fontana works to clear her name and discover the secrets behind the suspicious blaze."

Going Crazy in Public

Earl Emerson

1996

A Mac Fontana novel.

"In this chatty whodunit, fire chief Mac Fontana (Morons and Madmen), a no-nonsense and likable guy, takes on a serial arsonist who is toasting tiny Staircase, Wash., one corner at a time. The fires are only a nuisance at first, but the horizon darkens with the first fire fatality in the town's 100-year history. Residents assume the culprit is the same one who has been hard at work in nearby Seattle. But after Fontana's son is endangered by one of the blazes, the chief is convinced the arsonist is someone from Staircase-maybe someone in his department-with a grudge against him. There are plenty of candidates...."

The Dead Horse Paint Company

Earl Emerson

1997

A Mac Fontana novel.

"Nine firefighters lost their lives when the Dead Horse Paint Company burned to the ground. Mac Fontana survived - and then ran as far as he could from the smoke and the memories. But it wasn't far enough. Three years later, those lethal flames have come roaring back to life to sear and blister Mac Fontana, now the fire chief in tiny Staircase, Washington. The charred corpse of Ed Callahan - the despised former Deputy Chief whose inept handling of the famous blaze hastened the death of nine brave men---has been discovered in Fontana's jurisdiction. Everyone who was at the Dead Horse nightmare has good reasons for wanting Callahan dead . . . and that includes Chief Fontana himself. Now the time has come for him to face up to the heat of the terrible past . . . before a killer obliterates his future."