The
Smoke Jumper is of those novels that should appeal to just about ever reader. It encompasses so many elements critical to the successful novel that any short coming it may have in pace and composition can easily be overlooked. It is a
story about love, hurt and enduring friendship.
Mostly set in Missoula, which it would seem is an area prone to bush
fires, the story focuses on two men and a woman, who for reasons of duty, love and honour, find themselves inextricably bound together. Ed Tully is a musician and part time smoke jumper. His dashingly handsome friend Conor Ford also parachutes into raging fires and its no surprise that when Ed’s girlfriend Julia enters the story, thing get a little complicated.
Nicolas Evans, who also penned the very successful The Horse Whisperer, shows his
talent for describing the natural beauty of the landscape beautifully. You can almost hear the crackling timber and smell the scorched earth as he describes the consuming monstrous fires which devour forest and glade in the Montana mountains.
A smoke jump is when fire fighters are inserted into fires by parachute
drop in areas where the terrain would prohibit a land approach. During a routine drop, Ed suffers horrific injuries, which change his life forever. Conor is unable to
face either his friend’s bad luck or his thorn loyalties between him and Julia. He follows his talent as a photographer and his coverage of wars and battles takes him in to the middle of some of the most dangerous conflicts and places in the world.
Always courting danger and adventure, Conor realizes that he will eventually have to face down his most difficult fear. To face Julia and Ed and to be truthful to himself. The Smoke Jumper is a contemporary American story, and is ultimately a heroic tale of human triumph.
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