The Room of White Fire

By: T. Jefferson Parker

Narrated by: Will Damron

Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

For fans of Michael Connelly and CJ Box, a stirring thriller from New York Times best seller and award winner T. Jefferson Parker: The Room of White Fire is the tale of a private investigator tasked with hunting down a returned soldier broken and made dangerous by his experiences at war.

A young soldier shattered by war, on the run from a mental institute.

A PI carrying his own vicious wounds hired to track that soldier down.

A race against the clock to bring the soldier home before he reveals the secret that haunts him.

Roland Ford - once a cop, then a marine, now a private investigator - is good at finding people. But when he's asked to locate air force veteran Clay Hickman, he realizes he's been drawn into something deep and dark. He knows the weight of war, having served as a marine in First Fallujah; he also knows the nightmare of indescribable personal pain, as only two years have passed since his young wife's sudden death. What he doesn't know is why a shroud of secrecy hangs over the disappearance of Clay Hickman - and why he's getting a different story from everyone involved.

To begin with, there's the teenage woman who helped Clay escape: She's smart enough to fend off Ford's questions but impetuous enough to be on the run with an armed and dangerous man. Then there's Clay's attractive doctor, who clearly cares deeply for his welfare but is impossible to read, even as she inspires in Ford the first desire he has felt since his wife's death. And there's the proprietor of the mental institute who is as enigmatic as he is brash, and ambitious to the point of being ruthless; what could Clay possibly know to make this search so desperate?

Soon, what began as just a job becomes a life-and-death obsession for Ford, pitting him against immensely powerful and treacherous people and forcing him to contend with chilling questions about truth, justice, and the American way.

©2017 T. Jefferson Parker (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"T. Jefferson Parker's latest novel is filled with well-defined characters, excellent dialogue, and a gripping story. Will Damron's narration makes it even better....the thread that makes the story flow is Damron's on-point delivery." (AudioFile)

Not for the squeamish...

T Jefferson Parker has written a very vividly disturbing book with this one. I cannot say much more then what is written in the publisher's summary or I will spoil this book for someone else.
Basically this book is about a CIA prison, White Fire. It's also about enhanced interrogation techniques. There are two scenes in this book that are very hard to listen to that describe what I'm sure is only a small portion of the kind of things that actually occurred. I can only guess that Parker has interviewed many veterans to put together a compilation of experiences.
For the most part this book boils down to greed and not the actual care of the people suffering from their war experiences.
This is a good vs evil thriller and I hope that Parker will continue with this protagonist, Roland Ford. He's an intelligent PI with his own set of morals and principles.
Will Damron does an excellent job narrating.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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17 of 17 people found this review helpful

Vividly described torture

Profoundly dIsappointed.
There are spoilers in this review. The narration is delivered in a sing-song, start-stop, emotionally-infused drone. The story's stereotypical characters - dead saintly wife, wounded persevering PI, evil US military sociopaths, handsome proud jihadi, plucky determined doctor - are bound together by many, many minutely & lovingly described scenes of horrific torture and despair. The penultimate scenes are of CHILD torture and death. Mr. Parker is an excellent writer and these scenes are well written ... grotesqueries. Yes, we get it: war is terrible and repulsive things are done to combatants and non-combatants. I wish I'd given greater consideration to book reviews that described the storyline and avoided this audible reading. But I discounted them: it's a new Parker and I've read or listened to all of Mr. Parker's books and enjoyed them. I am profoundly disappointed with this one. It's left an awful residue in my mind. I won't jump at the next Parker novel, and if this is in fact the beginning of a new series, I'll abstain.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Masterfuly Written Story

Private investigator Roland Ford, ex-cop and ex-Marine, is haunted by both his wife’s tragic death, and his experiences in Fallujah. Ford is hired to find Clay Hickman, ex Air Force, who had recently escaped from his ultra-expensive, super-secure residential care facility, Arcadia. Although this seems at first to be a straightforward job, it becomes ever more complicated when Ford unearths secret after secret about Hickman, as well as about Arcadia and the people who run it.

Ford tells the story in his own voice, and we experience all his fears, his ghosts, and his questions. We see his flaws; we see his fabric of life hanging in the balance, and we are on his side. We observe the other characters through his filter. Ford offers us factual descriptions, but emotional opinions and observations. While he thinks that everyone has a morsel of goodness somewhere, we are not so sure. Ford uses all his senses to pull us into the story.
“Maybe it was the slamming of the Dutch door.
Or the wind in the grapes, or the way the tire swing turned on its rope.”

“Shade goes well with a warm day, a cold beer, and a stack of almost-overdue bills…
I paused to look out at the pond and the rolling hills beyond.”

“The Room of White Fire” is a difficult story to listen to at times because of the challenging social content. Parker creates a haunting scenario that readers may have read about in newspapers or heard about on TV but may not want to admit might be true. As we listen to the details about Ford’s struggle, about Hickman’s struggle, we must also wonder who among us is struggling with the same problems. This is a book we must all should listen to

The good news is that while this story has a definite end, Roland Ford’s story does not. I think Ford will find his way into another Parker story in the future, and I for one cannot wait.

Will Damron was outstanding with the delivery of the story

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Save your listening time for something else. Tedious, wordy, boring. I kept waiting for something redeeming in this book.

Save You’re listening time for something else. Tedious, boring. I kept waiting for something redeeming in this book nothing. Narration slow draggy and very difficult to listen to

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

This is not fiction

The core of this story is absolutely accurate. I'm surprised to see my experiences in print.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Political statement

This book is just a political statement regarding torture during the Iraq war.

Predictable and boring.