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When I think of fire escapes, I always think of detective fiction. I’m not sure why, exactly. I have been a Batman fan since the age of 5 and Gotham is always depicted as having an insane amount of fire escapes, which makes sense, considering that Gotham and New York are synonymous. Batman is a detective, first and foremost, so – detective fiction means fire escapes.

In the early conception of ‘Man on Fire’, I always saw DeWitt in his little apartment building, standing on a fire escape, smoking his cigarette. It made sense to me that the first victim displayed to the two detectives would be strung between two buildings, hung by the wrists, tied to the fire escapes. I chose the picture on the cover because to me, the fire escape is the central location of the novel. All roads lead there.

The irony, of course, was not lost on me. The idea of putting a burnt man on a fire escape had a dark humour to it that I enjoyed. But as I wrote, I never considered the irony of DeWitt’s safe space, his haven, being his own fire escape.

‘Escape’ is a theme of the novel. Everyone in West Ridge is dying (pun intended) to get out. DeWitt wants to escape the terror of living his life as a Z-Type. Spencer wants to escape from the humdrum routine of her life as a homicide detective. Never literally has to escape and is constantly on the run. All of them can leave if they want to, but there is something about West Ridge that has its claws in them all and they cannot pry themselves free.

Why do people in crime fiction stay in places where they are in constant danger? Why do the residents of Gotham City stay somewhere that they could be poisoned or terrorised any day of the week? Why, in the quaint little town of Midsommer, do people keep moving there and being surprised that there is a murder every other Tuesday?

It is a staple of the genre that the people in the fiction do not consider that they would be better off being elsewhere. Otherwise, where is the drama? But the characters in ‘Man on Fire’ are constantly thinking to themselves, ‘what would happen if I left?’ Spencer could pack up her car and drive out of there by the next morning and not bat an eye.

But she stays. As do they all.

Is escape weakness? In leaving West Ridge, do these characters believe that somehow they have failed?

And then for DeWitt, the idea of escape is something he cannot fathom with. He will never be a ‘normal’ person. He is trapped in the body he was born with, with powers he secretly loathes. Internalised hatred of his own kind, his people, is what drives him to keep doing what he does. Why should all Z-Types have to suffer the way he is suffering? He tells Never to go and will not accept that the reason that Never stays is the same reason he does: to protect the people of West Ridge, the town he was born in.

It is fitting, then, that the fire escape is the place where all things begin and end. It is the only place where DeWitt feels he can be himself. It is the place where he realises that he can do good in his community if he integrates himself fully in it.

And, happily, it is the place I associate with detective fiction.