In December 1961 a flash fire rages through the modern, pristine Hartford Hospital, stoked by a limitless supply of fuel and a ravenous appetite.
In the heart-pounding minutes that follow, a fireball virtually incinerates the unreachable ninth floor of the hospital leaving behind a charcoal tomb of terror, sadness and death.
But the fire monster is deprived of ultimately satisfying its voracious hunger to devour the entire hospital - and all in it -by city firefighters who improbably snatch victims from its fiery jaws through unthinkable acts of bravery and determination in one of the greatest stops in firefighting history.
When the smoke finally clears, only a nightmare is left where the flames had been, a lurid dream that an entire city will never forget, a tragedy that will haunt 16 families and traumatize even the most hardened, veteran firefighters, police, doctors and nurses forever.
But in the whispering winds that howl through the smashed windows and blackened corridors of the hospital, a question lurks: was this the result of a careless smoker - or an insane act of vengeance?About the Author: F.
Mark Granato's long career as a writer, journalist, novelist and communications executive in a US based, multi-national Fortune 50 company has provided him with extensive international experience on nearly every continent.
Today he is finally fulfilling a lifetime desire to write and especially to explore the What if? questions of history.
In addition to Out Of Reach, he has published the acclaimed novel, Finding David, a love story chronicling the anguish of Vietnam PTSD victims and their families that was nominated for a 2013 Pulitzer Prize, The Barn Find, chronicling the saga of a Connecticut family brought to its knees by tragedy that fights to find redemption, Of Winds and Rage, a suspense novel based on the 1938 Great New England Hurricane, Beneath His Wings: The Plot to Murder Lindbergh, and Titanic: The Final Voyage.
He writes from Wethersfiel.