Family & Friendship - Fiction, Crimes - Fiction, Police Stories

Tabula Rasa

Name: Tabula Rasa
Author: Shelly Reuben
ISBN: 9780966286878

by Shelly Reuben

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Overview

State Trooper Sebastian Bly and his brother-in-law Billy Nightingale are called in to investigate a house fire that killed two young children. Suspicious details at the fire scene – and the discovery of a baby hiding underneath the porch – put them on the trail of a murderous mother and lead to Sebastian and his wife, Annie, raising baby Meredith without revealing her dangerous and frightening past.

Meredith grows up to be a promising young ballerina – her ambitions fueled in part by the fictional history that Sebastian, Annie, and Billy have invented for her. But the truth threatens their charmed family circle as Merry’s biological mother returns to finish what she started.

Tabula Rasa is not only a gripping and entertaining crime novel but also a sensitive, warm exploration of the deeper issues of what defines a family and an individual.

About the Author, Shelly Reuben

Shelly Reuben is the author of Tabula Rasa, Origin & Cause, Spent Matches, the Edgar-nominated Julian Solo, and Weeping. She is a licensed private detective and a certified fire investigator who has been investigating fires and arson for more than twenty years. She lives in New York.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Arson investigator Billy Nightingale rescues a baby from a burned-out house where two children are found dead. But though Billy and his wife raise little Meredith without knowledge of her past, everything goes up in smoke when Meredith's biological mom returns-evidently ready to kill again. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Meredith Marmalade Bly lives a charmed life in upstate New York with her doting parents until a school project requires her to research her family tree. Suddenly, Annie and Sebastian Bly and her Uncle Billy, a New York City firefighter, are thrown into a perilous situation where they must lie to protect her. As an infant, she was found by Billy in the charred ruins of a house fire that killed her brother and sister. During the investigation, it was discovered that Meredith's biological mother, Edith Tuttle, had murdered six of her children in four separate house fires. After reading about a rash of teen suicides, and unwilling to wreak further emotional havoc on Meredith's life, the three adults decide to create a name and a past for the girl's mother. They find a name on a tombstone and make her a gifted ballerina born in Russia who defected to the West during the Cold War. This news has the predicted and hoped-for effect on Meredith when she becomes a talented dancer. Life for the Blys continues to be blessed until Edith gets out of jail. This exciting suspense story, similar in style to Mary Higgins Clark's early novels, will grab teens from its intriguing beginning and keep them reading until its rather predictable conclusion.-Pat Bender, The Shipley School, Bryn Mawr, PA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.