Playing With Fire

It rains a lot in Trillium, Oregon, but not enough to douse the political, personal and literal fires that surround the man in the hot seat, Ben Cromarty, Trilliums city manager.A suburb of Portland in the shadow of the snowy Cascades, Trillium has come a long way from its sleepy days as a sawmill town. The population is bursting. High-tech businesses are moving in. And the citizens are getting cantankerous.A proposal to reorganize the fire department quickly escalates beyond a dry policy debate. It divides the community, pitting council members against each other, the firefighters against the city, and business against business.In the middle of it all is Ben Cromarty, struggling to keep the city from consuming itselfand to keep his job. The conflict over the fire departmentand over Trilliums futureplays itself out in political intrigue, legal wrangling, personal vendettas and sundered friendships. Before it is over, the citys troubles are splashed across front pages, its political structure is shaken to its core, Cromartys family faces danger, and a self-inflicted assault on Cromartys marriage threatens to pull his personal life into the public crisis.