Eurasian Gambit — Sci-Fi Crime Novel and Detective Fiction
(by S.T. Fargo)
Read this online book for FREE! › Almost every criminal plot on this planet revolves around money or sex (or both) and it applies to the wicked case of this private eye too. It’s a cross-genre sci-fi story—crime fiction with a political twist, alien invasion novel, and detective sci-fi combined—which our world alone is way too small to contain.
_______
“It was the middle of March and the weather totally sucked. Streets had turned into rivers, the water following their curves as if the entire city were some weird urban canyon. Here and there, puddles were almost as big as Hudson Bay, and parks looked like Louisiana swamps. The heavy wind made raindrops whip people’s faces like small daemon tails. Winters here are not what they used to be. It’s all different now, probably because of the Chinese: they fucked up global climate about a decade ago with their large-scale industrial revolution and then the country disintegrated, leaving the rest of the world to deal with the consequences.
I was sitting in the chair in my miniature office on Lacuna Drive 85, a glass of White Bear whiskey in my hand, my feet up on the desk, watching a muted, portable TV set placed next to my shoes. The set was so close that I could have easily kicked it down if I had stretched my legs a little bit more but I couldn’t care less. Firstly, the TV set was very old and, therefore, insanely cheap. Ironically, it was made in China. The second reason I didn’t care was that even if it fell, it still wouldn’t have hit the floor since my office was only just bigger than the desk itself. There was simply not enough room for the device to fall all the way!
For the sake of being precise, I should mention here that my office was exactly two hundred and thirty-five by two hundred and forty-five centimeters. It was the smallest one in the whole building and probably in the whole of Greenland too. I was not even sure it was a good idea I had rented it in the first place; partly because I was not using it much, but also because of the money—I just didn’t have it!
In order to be even more precise, I should note that I never have enough money actually. Moneyless is my natural state of being and sometimes I wonder whether God created me just to serve as a byword—so as people could say, “Poor like a Murphy”! On the other hand, I’m not entirely sure it was God who created me anyway. I’d always doubted it, but after aliens turned up, it felt more than ridiculous to keep speculating on such a thing. Their appearance made a total mess of my head and upset the fragile system of beliefs I’d had before that!
From somewhere in the depths of the desk drawers, the telephone suddenly gave a hollow ring and startled me from my thoughts. I slowly put the glass down and reached to open the right lowermost drawer. I pulled out only the receiver to say a brief “hello” into it.
At first, no one answered. I could just hear heavy breathing at the other end of the line. Then someone cleared their throat and cautiously asked, “Mr. Mellrow, the PI?””
Tags: science-fiction crime novels, sci-fi detective novels, crime books, detective fiction, detective sci-fi, private eyes.