Smoke
Bruce Rubenstein has published hundreds of true crime stories in weeklies and monthly magazines. In 1991 he received the Chicago Bar Association's Herman Kogan Media Award for his Chicago Magazine article about the conviction of four Mexican immigrants for a quadruple homicide (dubbed “The Milwaukee Avenue Massacre” by the Sun Times) that they did not commit. They were serving the 12th year of their sentences of life without the possibility of parole when his article came out. As a result of his article the Governor  of Illinois pardoned them. An anthology of his crime stories, titled Greed Rage and Love Gone Wrong, was published by the Univ. Of Minnesota Press in 2004. He won the Minnesota State Arts Council award for fiction in 1979, and published short stories in little magazines in the 70s and 80s. His story, Smoke got In My eyes, written for the Akashic Books’ anthology, Twin Cities Noir (2006), was nominated for the Shamus Award. His short fiction has recently appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. His book about a notorious art theft, titled The Rockwell Heist will be published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press in March 2013.