June 1943

Coffee.

What wouldn’t I give for a simple cup of hot coffee? A big cup of genuine java.

That thought crosses my mind every day when I open my jar of Postum, measure out a tablespoon and add boiling water. It’s hot and liquid, but it’s not coffee, and even though it’s made from roasted grains and a dash of molasses, and it’s supposed to be healthy, it doesn’t give me a kick like the real stuff. Like they say, I like my coffee sweet and hot.

And don’t even think about finding a cup of tea. According to reports, the Brits have bought all the tea. All the tea in the world! I don’t know if that’s true, or even possible, but there’s not a lot of tea to be found.

Rationing coffee is hard to live with, maybe even harder than living without enough sugar and meat and other luxuries, not to mention nylons. We all have to sacrifice to win this war.

My friend Sally Post, another stenographer at the agency, is even more desperate for coffee than I am. Now, Sally likes to collect rumors as much as she likes leaving the office on time. But she’s got ahold of a new rumor that President Roosevelt is going to lift the rationing on coffee soon. This rumor might be true, because Sally told me she just typed an official letter that said although the new ration books are already printed, the coupons for coffee won’t be needed. Until then, Postum is my drink of choice, or rather, necessity.

It’s just another day at the Office of Price Administration. That’s right, I work for OPA, the agency people love to hate. I’m pretty sure every time you swap ration tickets with a friend—your eggs for her milk—someone says, “Don’t tell the OPA!”

Oh sure, everybody believes in our mission. Somebody’s got to put together rationing programs and control prices and police the black market. Unfortunately, there are price regulations because there are always some jerks who are going to try and cheat the system, hoard goods and sell them at exorbitant prices. Take alcohol. Every day we find stores selling bottles of whiskey above the two-dollar limit. We put people in jail for gouging an extra buck or two a bottle! It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But sadly, the petty crimes that feed the black market thrive everywhere.

Even I have thought some of these infractions aren’t so bad. In fact, I once said to my boss George Prescott, “It’s not like it’s murder.”

“Don’t kid yourself, sister,” he said. “People commit all kinds of crimes for all kinds of reasons. There’s murder afoot whenever money is involved.”

Murder?

That puts another spin on the subject! Even though I am a mere stenographer now, I can move up the OPA ladder. I have a shot at something better. While the men are away at war, women are everywhere. Driving cabs, pumping gas, keeping businesses going. And there are women working at every level here, except the very tip top level of OPA. We have women lawyers and investigators and assistant investigators. I’ve got my eye on an assistant investigator spot, and then who knows, I might even wind up investigating a murder.

The Brief Luminous Flight of the Firefly, Prequel The Crime Of Fashion Mysteries
Genre: Historical
Release: December 2021
Purchase Link

“It’s not like it’s murder,” Mimi told her boss.

“Don’t kid yourself, sister. People commit all kinds of crimes for all kinds of reasons. There’s murder afoot whenever money is involved.”

In wartime Washington, D.C., stolen sugar, illegal moonshine, ladies of the evening, and shortages of goods converge in murder.

It’s June 1943, halfway through a World War that feels like it will never end. Rationing, victory gardens, and making do or doing without have all become a patriotic way of life. But the flip side of patriotism is hoarding, profiteering, theft, and black marketeering.

A young Mimi Smith has gone to Washington to work for the war effort. Yet Mimi’s got bigger plans than laboring as a mere stenographer at the government agency that investigates black market activity. When two “magdalens” who were selling information and stolen goods are murdered, Mimi traces a connection to a killer that no one else suspects. While others don’t care about the women who service the servicemen, Mimi can’t turn away from a promise to a friend. She teams up with a skeptical policeman and a country boy soon to enter the Navy to trap a killer that everyone has been happy to see.

The Brief Luminous Flight of the Firefly is the prequel to the bestselling Crime of Fashion Mysteries, featuring Lacey Smithsonian. Set decades before Lacey plies her trade as a journalist in D.C., Firefly explores Lacey’s Great-aunt Mimi Smith’s wartime journey that brought her to Washington, the parallels between the two women, including their love of fashion and the clues people wear without knowing it, and the origins of Mimi’s trunk full of mysteries, the trunk Lacey later inherits. And both Mimi and Lacey discover they have a passion for finding out how the story ends.

About the author
Mystery and thriller writer Ellen Byerrum is a former journalist in Washington, D.C., as well as a produced and published playwright. Her plays are published by Samuel French, now known as Concord Theatricals. She is a member of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and the Dramatists Guild. Her latest book, The Brief Luminous Flight of the Firefly, is the 1940s prequel to her popular Crime of Fashion Mysteries, and features Mimi Smith, the “great-aunt Mimi” mentioned throughout the COF series. She has also written a middle grade mystery and a children’s rhyming picture book, Sherlocktopus Holmes: Eight Arms of the Law.

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