Firestorm

Scientist (and psychopath) James Trask, who worked on a dismantled government-sponsored project called "firestorm" to start remote-controlled firestorms, uses this weapon to kill his former co-workers and intends to sell the firestorm-technology to North Korea. Brad Silver, a mind reader/controller, and the Secret Service want to stop him. But for that they need the help of arson investigator Kerry Murphy, who has the special ability to get into the minds of people who set fires...

Firestorm was a mediocre book. For me the story was too far-fetched and the characters were rather drab.

Some quotes from the book

"I've been looking at my life since that horror on September eleventh, and when it all comes down to the bottom line, it's friends and family that count."

Dressed in tennis shoes, worn jeans, and an old sweatshirt, he couldn't have been more of a blot on her fine landscape. His enjoyment was totally immature, but he didn't give a damn.

She knew as well as the detectives that Sam looked as dangerous as a cuddly koala.

"How he can be so smart on a job in the field and so dumb in every other aspect of life boggles the mind."

"You didn't look like you could carry a miniature poodle out of a burning building."

She was tough and stubborn and was going to give him a hell of a bad time.

"I want you to find a monster. A monster who makes the man who killed your mother look angelic in comparison."

"Underneath all that dirt, he's is definitely a dog."

"You have no idea what ugliness people hide from the world. Some people's minds are cesspools."

George was a very strange individual, but she liked him. There were enough conventional people in the world, dammit. It was refreshing to run into someone who walked his own path and set his own rules.

"He's having fantasies about how I'll look, how I'll smell as he burns me to ashes."

He didn't like a monster, and somehow that was even more terrible.

"A cage isn't that bad as long as it's self-chosen."

"I wouldn't get any pleasure out of success if you didn't appreciate that failure is such a strong possibility."

But the money hadn't lasted more than a few days, and no one wanted to hire a fifteen-year-old for anything but sex.

"Donald William Dickens. Age forty-two, and every year after the age of ten devoted to petty and not so petty crime."

"I learned a long time ago that if you can't do anything about a problem, it's better to relax and gather strength for the moment when you can."

"Go to sleep." - "I can't go to sleep. How do you expect me to sleep when you keep saying things to stir me up?"

"Life is always providing us with new ways to make our existence entertaining."