Join Curious Iguana for Summer Sundays, a series of author talks and book signings presented in partnership with Frederick County Public Libraries.

About the author:

Monica Hesse is a features writer for The Washington Post and the author of Girl in the Blue Coat, a young adult novel set in Nazi-era Amsterdam. She was a finalist for a Livingston Award in local reporting and the James Beard Award in humor. Her newest book, American Fire (Liveright, $26.95,) released July 11th.

About the book:

Five months. 67 counts of arson. Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse heads to Accomack County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia to follow the trial of Charlie Smith. Over two years of reporting, Hesse uncovered the motives of Smith, a recovering addict, and his struggling accomplice, girlfriend Tonya Bundick. In depicting their tumultuous relationship, Hesse literarily resurrects a once-thriving coastal community and its distressed inhabitants, decimated by a punishing economy and increasingly terrified by a string of inexplicable crimes. Garnering comparisons to In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and Dreamland by Sam Quinones, American Fire re-creates the anguished nights this quiet county lit up in flames and incorporates the long-overlooked history of arson in the United States.

Event is free and open to the public; no registration required. Books will be available for purchase and signing at event.

At the C. Burr Artz Public Library, 110 E. Patrick St., Frederick, MD. Click here for info.