From Latin, the title translates to "blank slate" (though my preference would be, "razed tablet"). In terms of its credentials as a mystery thriller, its unique departure into a bizarre pattern of arson as told by a 20-year veteran in the field, also involving the joys and dangers of adoption, and psychological subterfuges, fully qualify it and, with a twist.

Reuben's bio as an arson investigator is a prominent point made in the publicity attached to her book. So, when Act One (she calls it "Book One") takes us into the case of a house fire, we understand it as the subject of an author not only confident in her knowledge of source references, but an expert with considerable experience from which to draw. Maybe, even, there's an element of non-fiction in her tale.

The Tuttles aren't typical of the folks you'd normally find in the tightly interwoven village of Sojourn. Edith and Wilbur are renters of the "ugly house," which they occupy with their three children. There's Gabe, their young son; Minna, his sister, and there's... "baby," the youngest of the lot that Edith never got around to name. When she refers to her youngest child at all, which is rare, she calls her "the baby" or, simply, "it." If it weren't for the care lavished on the infant by her siblings, this little girl would starve to death for all the nurturing she receives from mom.

"Baby," a being of unformed attachments, is the tabula rasa.

Billy Nightingale, a mechanical experimenter from boyhood, decided to become a fireman when he was in his teens. He was on duty the night of the fire. His sister Annie became a flirtatious college girl with a "take no prisoners" attitude, turned down a scholarship at Julliard for the life of a freelance writer, and married State Trooper Sebastian Bly, who was also at the scene.

When Billy and Sebastian investigate the ugly house after the fire is brought under control with Edith and Wilbur safe and Gabe and Minna dead, they discover a bedroom door that had been closed during the conflagration and, inside, the kerosene heater that started it. Billy also notes the five toothbrushes in the bathroom and realizes that a family member hasn't been accounted for. When he sits down to reflect on what he's seen and tries to make sense of it, a sound leads him to the missing one, "baby," whom Edith didn't even mention in her rambling post-fire interview.

Billy's research reveals the worst of it, that the Tuttles have a history of fires, dead children, new locations, new children--a rap sheet to induce nightmares. Who would suspect a mother of this kind of offspring carnage? This is a murderess so unique you think you've read it wrong.

Edith is soon put away, Annie and Billy adopt and name the baby Meredith and, through Book Two, life is so idyllic as Meredith grows up to be a dancer, you begin to think Reuben is writing a soap opera. But, stay. You're being seduced by a very capable writer. Author Reuben has a demonically inspired way of taking us back to the realm of the mystery-thriller, intensified by a stratagem I can only describe as arch. Effectively so.

Book Three takes a strangle hold on your attention and is likely to take your breath away. It establishes Reuben, in my mind at least, as a master of suspense and dramatic structure.

Click to play a radio spot featuring "Tabula Rasa."