IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S MURDER, Mimi said.

"Don't kid yourself, sister," her boss growled. "People commit all kinds of crimes for all kinds of reasons. "There's murder afoot whenever money is involved."

It's June 1943 in Washington, D.C., midway 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. Idealistic young Mimi Smith has answered the call of the war effort, laboring at the Office of Price Administration, which runs rationing and polices the black market -- as a stenographer. Mimi longs to move up to an "important job" as an investigator.

When local "magdalens," who may have dabbled in stolen goods start dying, few even care about these women who service the servicemen. But Mimi is burdened with suspicions--and a promise made to a young woman trying to leave that life behind. She teams up with a skeptical cop and a Navy-bound country boy to trap a murderer--a killer everyone has always been happy to see.

The Brief Luminous Flight of the Firefly is the 1940s prequel to Ellen Byerrum's bestselling Crime of Fashion Mysteries, featuring Lacey Smiothsonian. Mimi Smith is Lacey's great-aunt, the famous "Aunt Mimi" who bequeathed to Lacey some of her best assets: her trunk full of memories and mysteries, her flair for vintage style, and her passion for following a story to the very end.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY calls Ellen Byerrum's bestselling Crime of Fashion series "first-rate" and "as smooth as fine-grade cashmere."