April 17, 1991.

To the L. Harry Lee Literary Agency, common criminals seem to have one characteristic

they all shared.

The need to distance themselves from their crimes as quickly as possible.

All criminals that is, except the arsonist.

The arsonist stays close by and sometimes even participates in the discovery end, eventual

extinguishment of his fire.

The arsonist is weak and insecure and usually perpetrates his crime in the dark.

The evidence is almost always destroyed if not by the fire than by the firefighters during

extinguishment.

My novel, Points of Origin, is a fact-based work that follows the pattern of an actual

arsonist who has been setting serial fires in California over the past eight years.

He has not been identified or apprehended.

Probably will not be in the near future.

Thirty years ago, this letter was making the rounds at literary agencies across the country.

It was attached to a manuscript for a novel called Points of Origin, which told the story

of a fictional arsonist who set fires all over Southern California.

My name is Carrie Antholis.

At the time, I was a young filmmaker, living in Hollywood, looking for a story to tell.

I was in my car on my way to a meeting when a news bulletin came over the radio.

Federal agents had arrested a suspected serial arsonist.

A man they said had been torching California for a decade.

...