Growing up in Los Angeles, John Orr watched with awe as firefighters scrambled to put out blazes with a seeming disregard for their own lives. Wanting to emulate his heroes, he finally became a fireman with the Glendale Fire Department. An eccentric and a loner who made few friends, Orr moonlighted as a security guard, eventually becoming a fire captain and one of southern California’s most renowned serial arson investigators. While Orr busted a string of petty arsonists, there was one serial criminal who was responsible for killing four people he couldn’t track down. This fire lover used the same simple yet devastating device, and was perfect in his execution. Until he left a fingerprint—one clue investigators could match. When they finally did, they were stunned to discover that the print belonged to none other than John Orr. Award-winning author Joseph Wambaugh tells this chilling story, using interviews, case records, and hundreds of thousands of pages of court transcriptions.