Spent Matches

Bramble & Nolan #2

by Shelly Reuben

Author Shelley Reuben has her own arson investigation business, and she brings all her technical know-how to bear in this crime mystery, as well as a finely developed romantic attachment to the "magic of fire." New York City arson investigator Wylie Nolan is called in to get to the bottom of a seemingly inexplicable case: valuable paintings housed in the locked maximum security room of a museum seem to have spontaneously combusted. Reuben's eccentric characters are charming, and engaging sub-plots swirl like smoke around the main story.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published July 7, 1996

About the author

Shelly Reuben's first novel, Julian Solo, was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for an Edgar Award and by the Libertarian Futurist Society for a Prometheus. Her crime novel, Origin and Cause, was nominated by the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan for a Falcon; and her adult fable, The Man with the Glass Heart, was a Freedom Book Club selection. Her fiction has been published by Scribner, Harper, Harcourt, and is also available through Blackstone Audio Books.

Her new book, Dabbling in Crime, November 2016, is a collection of short fiction originally published in The Forensic Examiner and The Evening Sun.

Shelly Reuben is a licensed private detective, and the years that she spend investigating fire and arson inspired many of her stories and books.

Reviews

[Marilyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of snappy dialogue (not to my taste) and a whiff of "Guys and Dolls"-type characters. Solving the cause of a fire in a private New York museum takes a back seat to other plot developments, including two characters' personal life, and more fires. Whew! The true appreciation of the British 19th century artist group the Pre-Raphaelites is a nice touch.

This is more a fire/arson puzzle; its setting in a museum is almost incidental, and even for 1995, the safety/security protocols are VERY lax. In 1995, just under 25% of Americans smoked. You can find most of them here in this book.

[Margaret Fernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who would have thought you could have a locked room mystery involving fire? Shelly Reuben does it, puts it in a museum, and constructs a plot involving art scams, Pre-Raphaelite art, a lonely soul who thinks he lives in the wrong century, an alcoholic mother living (and dying) on City Island, and a cast of characters so engaging that you'll wish you could meet them when you walk down the street. You'll read it. You'll love it. And then you'll want to read everything else that that Reuben - a legitimate fire investigator herself - ever wrote.

[Mary Newcomb]

Three arson investigations are tucked within this mystery. I also learned a little about pre-Raphaelite art and got to see some romance in bloom.