Chad Dundas- The Blaze

Matthew Rose’s mind is a mystery. Especially to himself. A bombing in Iraq has left the former soldier with a traumatic brain injury, and now he can’t be sure about anything. The past is a cloudy haze to him, filled with jumbles of impressions and not many solid memories. Unfortunately for him, that could have deadly consequences for his future – how can he protect himself from a killer when he can’t even trust his own mind? That’s the pulse-pounding premise of THE BLAZE, a mesmerizing new novel from author Chad Dundas, who garnered massive acclaim for his 2016 debut novel, Champion of the World. After leaving the Army, Matthew has trouble acclimating to life back in the States. His head wound means he doesn’t remember major events from his own life, but even worse, major relationships feel unfamiliar to him as well. He knows he should love his mother, for example, but she seems like a stranger to him. The heartbreaking scenario is rendered even worse when Rose receives the news that his father has killed himself. Forced to return to Montana where he grew up to settle his dad’s estate, Matthew is on shaky ground. He knows his parents had divorced long ago and that he and his father had stayed in communication, but they weren’t close, and he doesn’t know why. Soon, his faulty memory will become a problem that could spell his own doom. It begins with a deadly and suspicious fire. Shortly after returning to Montana, Matthew takes a late-night walk to clear his head and witnesses a massive blaze that burns down a house and leaves a local college student dead. It’s a terrible tragedy, but even more troubling, the event stirs foggy recollections inside his brain, about another fire in this town many years before…and perhaps his own connection to the person who started it. CHAD DUNDAS has been a sportswriter for ESPN, NBC Sports, the Associated Press, Sporting News, Bleacher Report and other national and regional outlets. His short fiction has appeared in such publications as the Beloit Fiction Journal, Sycamore Review, Sou'Wester and Thuglit, and he is the author of Champion of the World, which was named a Boston Globe Best Book of 2016. A fourth-generation Montanan, he earned his MFA from the University of Montana and lives with his wife and daughter in Missoula.  PHOTO CREDIT : Amy Donovan