A Slow Fire Burning

A Slow Fire Burning (2021) is a contemporary murder mystery novel written by British novelist Paula Hawkins. The novel is Hawkins’s third major work and builds on themes that she established in her first psychological thriller novel, the extremely successful The Girl on the Train (2015). Like that earlier novel, A Slow Fire Burning incorporates multiple points of view, potentially unreliable narrators, and the perspectives of marginalized characters. It is also set in contemporary London, England. The novel includes themes of family secrets, betrayal by parental figures, and the power created by money and social status. This guide references the 2021 Penguin Random House edition.

Content Warning: The novel includes references to domestic abuse, violent deaths, suicide, and alcohol addiction.

Plot Summary

The plot revolves around the murder of a young man named Daniel Sutherland. Early on a Sunday morning, Daniel is found dead on a boat he has been renting on a canal in London; he has been stabbed several times in the neck. Miriam Lewis, a reclusive woman who lives on the boat next to Daniel’s, finds the body, and police confirm that Daniel likely died either late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Suspicion quickly falls on a young woman named Laura Kilbride; Laura spent Friday night with Daniel on his boat and had sex with him. Laura claims that during their encounter, Daniel abruptly turned rude and aggressive. According to Laura, she became angry, and the two of them had a physical altercation, but Laura left the boat and went home early on Saturday morning.

Laura is considered suspicious and unreliable because she has a history of altercations, angry outbursts, and poor impulse control. As an adolescent, Laura suffered severe injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, when she was hit by a car; her injuries also resulted in physical disabilities. The car was driven by the man with whom Laura’s mother was having an affair, and her mother’s complicity in trying to protect him left Laura bitter and partially estranged from her family.

Unbeknownst to the police, Miriam feels sympathetic to Laura and wants to protect her. Miriam also wants to hurt Theo Myerson, a well-known novelist, and Daniel’s uncle: Decades earlier, Miriam and her friend Lorraine were abducted while hitchhiking as teenagers. They were held captive and tortured; Miriam managed to escape, but Lorraine was murdered. The man who abducted them was assumed to have killed himself and was never brought to justice. Miriam wrote about this experience in her memoir and showed the manuscript to Theo, whom she casually knew and respected as a writer. Theo claimed to never have read the memoir, but thereafter published a successful crime novel called The One Who Got Away, stealing many ideas and details from Miriam’s manuscript. Miriam has never been able to get anyone to believe her claims and has always hated Theo for what he did to her.

In hopes of revenge, Miriam begins to make false claims and hide clues, attempting to hurt Theo by pinning the murder on his wife, Carla Myerson. Theo and Carla live separately, and Carla is also Daniel’s aunt. Carla’s sister, Angela, died only a few weeks before Daniel’s murder. Carla had a tense and difficult relationship with both her sister and nephew because 15 years earlier, Carla and Theo’s young son, Ben, died after being left with Angela for the weekend. Daniel was about 10 at the time. Ben fell from a balcony after the door leading to the balcony was left open, and Theo, Angela, and Carla have all assumed this was Angela’s fault, especially as Angela has a history of excessive drinking. After Ben’s death, Angela had a strained and unhappy relationship with her son, and Daniel often resented his mother.

Despite Miriam’s interference, as the police investigate the case, it seems more and more likely that Laura will be charged with murder. By coincidence, Laura is good friends with an elderly woman named Irene, who was Angela’s next-door neighbor. Because of her proximity, Irene observed secret interactions between Angela, Theo, and Carla, and suspects that there are nefarious elements in the family. Irene is anxious to prove that Laura didn’t kill Daniel, which motivates her to suspect Daniel’s family members.

Irene eventually discovers drawings implying that Daniel and Carla may have had a sexual relationship and learns that Daniel taunted Theo with this information. She also uncovers different drawings in which Daniel recounts a narrative of what happened when Ben died: Enraged after catching his mother having sex with her boyfriend, Daniel purposefully opened the door and lured the toddler out towards the balcony. After Ben fell, Daniel presented the death as an accident, and allowed his mother to be blamed for carelessly leaving the door open.

When Theo sees the notebook revealing Daniel’s potential role in Ben’s death, and knowing that Carla has already seen it, he goes to the police and confesses to having killed Daniel. Theo claims to have killed his nephew out of jealousy and anger after learning that Daniel and Carla had a sexual relationship. With Theo taking responsibility for the crime, the police release Laura, but she is attacked by another inmate before she can leave prison. Meanwhile, Irene pieces together her observations and confronts Carla: Irene believes that Carla killed Daniel after learning that he was involved in the death of her son and first wanted Laura and now Theo to take the blame for her crime. Carla admits to the crime but defends her actions: She insists that Daniel deserved to die for killing her son and psychologically torturing his own mother for decades. Unbeknownst to Carla, Irene records this conversation and takes the recording to the police.

After hearing the recording, the police charge Carla with murder and drop charges against Theo. Laura and Irene are cleared and are now able to begin a happy and secure life. During this time, Theo has been receiving letters from someone claiming that Theo stole details from his life and used them in his novel. Theo assumes these letters came from Miriam and confronts her after Carla goes to prison. Miriam looks at the letters and is stunned to realize that they could only have been sent by the man who abducted her and killed Lorraine many years ago. Theo and Miriam work together to lure the man to them, and at the end of the novel, it is implied that they kill him.