The Burn Pattern by William Liu

Nineteen years ago, a fire at Ransom Point Marina killed two people and sent Leland Fesko to prison for decades.

The case was supposed to be closed.

Then cold-case detective Corinne Baptiste opens the evidence boxes.

One fire-debris sample is missing. Another has been opened and resealed without explanation. The forensic evidence that helped convict Fesko may have been contaminated, and the investigator who once testified with absolute certainty now admits the burn patterns may never have proved arson at all.

What begins as a routine review becomes something far more dangerous.

Corinne uncovers a forgotten laboratory warning, suppressed evidence, flawed fire science, an overlooked witness, and a chain of decisions that allowed one questionable conviction to survive for nearly two decades. But the deeper she digs, the less the case looks like a single mistake.

Someone knew more than they admitted.

Someone removed evidence.

And someone may still have a reason to keep the truth buried.

As Corinne follows the trail from police evidence rooms and forensic laboratories to old witnesses and a courtroom reckoning, she is forced to confront a disturbing question: What happens when nobody in the system intends to destroy an innocent man—but the system does it anyway?

The Burn Pattern is a gripping cold-case mystery and police procedural about wrongful conviction, forensic evidence, institutional failure, and the devastating cost of certainty.