  Reinhard Schlickeiser has made groundbreaking contributions to various
aspects of blazar physics, including diffusive shock acceleration, the theory
of synchrotron radiation, the production of gamma-rays through Compton
scattering in various astrophysical sources, etc. This paper, describing the
development of a self-consistent shock-in-jet model for blazars with a
synchrotron mirror feature, is therefore an appropriate contribution to a
Special Issue in honor of Reinhard Schlickeiser's 70th birthday. The model is
based on our previous development of a self-consistent shock-in-jet model with
relativistic thermal and non-thermal particle distributions evaluated via
Monte-Carlo simulations of diffusive shock acceleration, and time-dependent
radiative transport. This model has been very successful in modeling spectral
variability patterns of several blazars, but has difficulties describing orphan
flares, i.e., high-energy flares without a significant counterpart in the
low-frequency (synchrotron) radiation component. As a solution, this paper
investigates the possibility of a synchrotron mirror component within the
shock-in-jet model. It is demonstrated that orphan flares result naturally in
this scenario. The model's applicability to a recently observed orphan
gamma-ray flare in the blazar 3C279 is discussed and it is found that only
orphan flares with mild ($\lesssim$ a factor of 2 - 3) enhancements of the
Compton dominance can be reproduced in a synchrotron-mirror scenario, if no
additional parameter changes are invoked.
