The Burnin'

On April 23, 1940, a fire broke out at a night club in the segregated town of Natchez, Mississippi. It remains one the deadliest building fires in U. S. history, resulting in the deaths of over two hundred men and women-all of them African American. THE BURNIN' is a historical fiction novel about the aftermath of the tragedy from the accounts of a coroner, a nurse, and an arson detective. Herb Jones, a local black coroner, receives a call in the middle of the night from a fireman informing him that a terrible fire has occurred at a dance hall in the town's "negro district." Herb drives over to the charred night club where some victims are burned beyond recognition. In addition to the strenuous process of transporting and embalming the bodies, Mississippi segregation laws only permit black coroners to handle black corpses, limiting the help available to him. As the town reeks of death and the funeral firm faces bankruptcy because of its financial obligations to the dead, he attempts to identify the bodies of neighbors, friends, and even relatives. Meanwhile, Eliza, Herb's wife, is a nurse caring for the scores of burned and injured at the only black hospital in town. The conventional treatment for critical burns involves a meticulous skin removal process known as the "tannic acid-silver nitrate treatment."Julian Winters, a brilliant but smug arson detective, is sent from Jackson to determine the cause of the fire and help draft safety codes to prevent a reoccurrence of a similar disaster. When a few locals that escaped the blaze describe a drunken man threatening to burn the place down that night, he tries to determine if the fire was a terrible accident or a mass murder.