Gregory Lee Renz
Thriller Fiction, 350 pages
Published June 1, 2019
Three Towers Press
Buy on Amazon
$4.99
$12.99-$26.95
About the Book:
BENEATH THE FLAMES is an intimate combination of love, race, and life as an urban firefighter.
A fire in a neighboring farmhouse has young farmer and volunteer firefighter, Mitch Garner, blaming himself for the tragic outcome. He loses all hope of forgiving himself. His only hope for redemption is to leave Jennie, the girl he’s loved since high school, and journey from Wisconsin’s lush farmland to the decaying inner city of Milwaukee to prove himself as a professional firefighter.
Mitch is assigned to the busiest firehouse in the heart of one of the most blighted areas of Milwaukee, the Core, where he’s viciously hazed by senior firefighters. He struggles to hold it together at horrific scenes of violence and can’t do anything right at fires. Within weeks, he’s ready to give up and quit. His salvation comes in the form of a brash adolescent girl, Jasmine Richardson. Mitch is assigned to tutor her little sister through a department mentoring program. Despite Jasmine’s contempt toward Mitch, her courage and devotion to her little sister inspire Mitch to stay and dedicate himself to helping her and the neighboring children overcome the hopelessness of growing up in crushing poverty.
Trouble on the farm has Mitch torn between returning home to Jennie and staying in Milwaukee where he’ll be forced to risk his life to protect Jasmine from the leader of the One-Niner street gang.
My review:
Renz has created a wonderful story of finding and following the heart. Mitch is a young man of great passion who has difficulty deciding how and where to spend that passion. His girlfriend Jennie is a home girl and devastated when Mitch simply can’t stop blaming himself for a terrible accident. Mitch’s need to heal takes him away from home for the first time in order to grow and learn and experience a different way of living than his small-town and in some ways, small-minded, rural upbringing. He finds all of that in fire-fighting training in the heart of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, still the most segregated community in the States. When his brother and father need him, though, he has many choices to make; ultimately, about who needs him, and who he needs, the most. Saving the world often starts in one’s own backyard.
Told from several perspectives, but mostly Mitch’s, Renz
uses his career in firefighting to tell an honest and real story of what it’s
like to be a professional firefighter in contemporary urban settings.
About the Author:
Fire Captain Gregory Lee Renz was involved in a dramatic
rescue of two little boys from their burning basement bedroom. He received a
series of awards for this rescue including induction into the Wisconsin Fire
and Police Hall of Fame in 2006. When he was asked to share the dramatic rescue
at several awards banquets, he was moved by the emotional responses he received
and was struck by the power of his storytelling. After serving the citizens of
Milwaukee for twenty-eight years as a firefighter, Gregory Lee Renz retired to
Lake Mills, Wisconsin with his wife, Paula. After numerous creative writing
courses through the University of Wisconsin and countless workshops,
conferences, and revisions, he finally typed The End to Beneath
the Flames.
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