My father is a firefighter. His origin story is well-known and well-told in our family. As a toddler, young Bruce was riveted by television news coverage of a certain historic fire in Hartford, Connecticut, captivated by the shining trucks on display and the helmeted army deployed to battle the blaze. Attending elementary school, he anxiously awaited each Fire Safety Day and the chance to meet his heroes. And on the day that he turned eighteen-years-old, he returned home from high school to be greeted by the local volunteer fire chief, who was waiting with a membership application in his hand.
Ever since, my father has been responding to emergencies and putting out fires, racing toward the danger rather than away. He’s dedicated his life to protecting the people of his community and the things they hold most precious. Today, in the very hometown he grew up in, he is the department chief who hands out the new member applications, and in his white helmet he leads a proud team of dedicated volunteers who put themselves at risk day after day, year after year.
I never felt the calling to follow in my father’s footsteps—my own passions led me into a world of books, to academia and publishing—but the fire service has been a constant in my life, too. To this day, my father keeps a simple crayon drawing of a firetruck that I scribbled one evening at the scene of a call when I was just a boy, as I watched him don his turnout gear and roll out hoses. I have borne witness to his sacrifice and to the fellowship shared by all firefighters. It has instilled in me a deep understanding of the heroism of the first responder.
Truly, these are heroes every bit as awe-inspiring as the legends who have captivated me in detective stories throughout the years—in print, the likes of Holmes and Marple and Brown; and on television, everyone from Columbo to Magnum to Briscoe to Frank Black.
When my abiding love of detective fiction inevitably inspired me to write my own mystery tales, I was bound and determined to make these stories about firefighters. Here was a dangerous and thrilling arena of heroes and monsters to rival that found in the police procedural! Here was an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the unparalleled heroism of the firefighter and those in the emergency medical services. I found my detective hero in retired fire marshal Richard “Dick” Byrne, an arson investigator who works with the Metropolitan Police in the District of Columbia, not so far from the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg.
I hasten to add that, in personality, Byrne is nothing like my father. A chain-smoking Scottish expat with a lifetime of experience fighting fires, Byrne is also irascible, as uncouth as he is uncompromising. He’s possessed of a fiery spirit that often gets him into all sorts of entertaining trouble during his investigations. His methodology, however, and that unwavering commitment to protecting the innocent and safeguarding his city, that was something familiar.
I’ve had no shortage of inspiration. Over the years, I’ve put together a battered notebook bulging with scraps of paper bearing all sorts of ideas for Dick Byrne mysteries, many of them suggested by my father and his work. There are more arson cases hinted at in those pages than I will ever be able to write. Slowly but surely, however, the best of them have made their way to the page.
Dick Byrne makes his Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine debut in “The Black Box.” This is a short story that you won’t find referenced in my notebook of ideas. Instead, I was presented with a writing prompt to craft a mystery that focused on “a black box.” Like most writing prompts I’ve been handed over the years, the creative challenge of it drew me in. What sort of arson investigation might center on a black box? The answer, as you will soon read, lies within a literal black box—a fire safe made of steel and vermiculite, designed and manufactured for heat endurance, shock absorbance, and water resistance. A strongbox made to ensure that the most precious of secrets will survive any disaster.
I knew the concept could be pushed further, however, to the study of behaviorism, to stimuli inputs and output reactions—to the black box of the human mind. Dick Byrne is a brilliant detective, but here was a dramatic opportunity to explore his most pronounced shortcomings. For though Byrne possesses an expert knowledge of chemistry, thermodynamics, and pyrolysis, like so many of us, he often struggles to understand what goes on in the minds of his fellow human beings. The result of that writing prompt became a spiraling story of boxes within boxes, mysteries within mysteries.
The spirit of the investigation—and of the characters who take part it—remains the most essential part of the formula for Dick Byrne. At the heart of “The Black Box,” you’ll witness police, firefighters, and emergency personnel working together to resolve a crisis. As in each installment of this series, you’ll find the District of Columbia Fire Department doing what they do best. And for all his flawed humanity, the selfless and steadfast spirit of the firefighter endures in the heart of the detective.
Trace Evidence 