Friday, September 22, 2023


Damn you, Detective!
a Sci-Fi Crime Novel
(by S.T. Fargo)

Damn you, Detective! - a science-fiction crime story

Read this online book for FREE! › A funny crime story about a failed detective (Murphy Mellrow) and his sexy client, who also becomes his assistant, leads to an investigation, which surprisingly circles back to its ridiculous beginning. It's a detective novel (crime fiction with a political touch and humorous sci-fi twists) that breaks genre conventions.

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“Everything was a mess. It was a total fucking mess! I wearily opened my left eye and even more warily closed it. Then I tried to do the same with the right one but couldn’t, so I had to make my piece with the left again. My kitchen looked like a battlefield.

I heard a strange noise not far from me and made an enormous effort to focus my attention on the place where I thought it was coming from. It took me a while to find out. It turned out to be the sink tap. The water was wildly gushing out of there, raising a frantic cloud of water drops everywhere—like a damn waterfall. I assumed the hot water was running because of the steam, but the weirdest thing was the color of the splashes. They seemed rusty, and I had no idea why.

Eventually, I managed to open my right eye, which was probably bruised because it hurt terribly, and then I tried to get up. Some obscure suspicion buried deeply in my dizzy brain suggested I would fail to do so, and I did. It was only natural, given the circumstances: my right hand was raised above my shoulder, hanging on to something that restricted my movements. I slowly turned my head to look up, but the headache I felt hit me so hard that I had to give up immediately. Instead, I tried to feel the thing with my fingers. It was a pair of handcuffs, obviously. One of the rings was clicked around my wrist, and the other was around the radiator pipe. From there, hot water trickled down my forearm and dripped on my neck, moving further down my back.

I tried to think about the situation I was in, and not surprisingly, I failed again. I was totally unable to remember anything about the events that led me to all this. In fact, I had no recollection of the past two days at all, and my brain felt dead and sleazy, like a three-day-old mushroom left to rot in the woods. Every attempt to make it work ended in the awful swamp of persistent amnesia and my efforts just stopped there.

Right then, the telephone rang loudly across the hallway and startled me. Since I didn’t expect that, I jumped up, forgetting I was cuffed. The only result of my action was that I lost my balance, fell backward, and struck my head very hard into one of the radiator ribs. My brain exploded with pain, which made me curse as I sat on my butt again.

The phone kept ringing persistently. When, after a few minutes, my throbbing pain calmed down a bit, I made another attempt to look around and figure out what was going on. It was a tricky thing to do with no memories in my head. The new bits of information I managed to add to the picture were: an empty pack of ground coffee on the kitchen counter; the fact that the sink was obviously clogged with dishes and the brown water was now overflowing it, trickling down toward the kitchen tiles; and the presence of a blue plastic bucket, which seemed full of empty whiskey bottles. I fixed my eyes on the latter, puzzled, because I didn’t remember owning such a thing. Since I couldn’t rely on my brain to help me understand anything, I hoped the bucket itself would explain why it was here, but unfortunately, it wasn’t interested in doing so. In the meantime, the water from the sink finally reached the floor.”




Tags: sci-fi crime novels, sci-fi crime stories, detective science-fiction, PI story, private eyes, criminal fiction, free online books.


You can also read for free:

Eurasian Gambit—a Sci-Fi Crime Novel and Detective Fiction

...and even more stuff on:

www.stfargo.com


Tuesday, March 3, 2020


Eurasian Gambit
a Detective Science-Fiction Novel
(by S.T. Fargo)

Eurasian Gambit—a science-fiction detective novel (crime fiction)

Read this online book for FREE! › Almost every criminal plot on this planet revolves around money or sex (or both), and that applies to the wicked case of this private eye too. It’s a near-future genre-bending sci-fi story—crime fiction with a political twist, an alien invasion novel, and detective sci-fi combined—that our world alone is way too small to contain.

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“It was the middle of March, and the weather 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. The winters here are not what they used to be. It’s all different now, probably because of the Chinese. They messed up the global climate about a decade ago with their large-scale industrial revolution, and the country disintegrated, leaving the rest of the world to deal with the consequences.

I was sitting in my chair in my miniature office on Lacuna Drive 85 with a glass of White Bear whiskey in my hand and my feet on the desk, watching a portable TV set placed next to my shoes. I had just followed the latest news on the crisis in Britain and the wild idea they had to put the country up for auction. My desk was actually so crammed with the device that I could accidentally kick it down if I stretched my legs a little more, but I couldn’t care less. Firstly, the TV set was insanely old and, therefore, very cheap—ironically, it was made in China—and secondly, even if it fell, it still wouldn’t have hit the floor since my office was only slightly larger than the desk itself. There was simply not enough room on both sides for the device to fall.

For the sake of being precise, I will mention here that my office was precisely 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, and I wasn’t even sure it was a good idea that I rented it in the first place, partly because I wasn’t using it much but also because of the money—I just didn’t have it.

To be even more precise, I should probably note that I never have enough money. Moneyless is my natural state of being, and sometimes I wonder whether god created me just to serve as a byword—so that people could say, “poor like a Murphy.” On the other hand, I’m not entirely sure it was god who created me, anyway. I had always had doubts about it, but after aliens turned up, it suddenly felt ridiculous to believe in such a thing. Their appearance made a total mess of my head!

From somewhere in the depths of my desk, the telephone gave a hollow ring and startled me from my thoughts. I slowly put the glass down and reached out to open the right lowermost drawer. I pulled out the handset to say a brief “hello.”

At first, no one answered. I could only 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.


You can also read for free:

Damn you, Detective!—a Sci-Fi Crime Novel and Detective Fiction

...and even more stuff on:

www.stfargo.com


Sunday, March 1, 2015


BYE-BYE, BRIAN
(a mini-story by S.T. Fargo)


TV ANNOUNCER:

And now, on the BBC, here is news on the latest in Somangola. As we’ve said earlier this morning, the situation there is critical. Hundreds and hundreds have been reported dead for the past twenty-four hours, including fifty-three foreign journalists, hunted down and mercilessly killed by the provisional government. Our correspondent Brian Johnson is right there, in the middle of the heat, but we won’t reveal his exact location for his own safety. He’ll tell us now what’s happening after the coup… uhh… Hello, Brian!

BRIAN:

Hi, Michael! As you’ve just said, the situation here is absolutely critical! The provisional government of General Mbamunda is responsible for at least one thousand deaths, including over fifty foreign journalists. At the moment, I’m hiding on the second floor of a building here in the capital, Mgula, but even from the inside, I could distinguish sixteen different types of screaming coming from three different directions! These are probably people who have been tortured by the government forces, which, by the way, also try to impose an information blackout.

TV ANNOUNCER:

Are you… are you really capable of distinguishing fifteen different types of screaming, Brian? Because I think it’s incredible if you really—

BRIAN:

Not fifteen, sixteen. Sixteen types of screaming! And I guess they could have been easily twenty, but, unfortunately, the National Opera is right behind the place where I’m hiding, so—

TV ANNOUNCER:

Brian, Brian, be careful not to reveal—

BRIAN:

I mean, the building is quite massive, and because of that, I can’t hear what’s happening in the south. All the streets in the capital are full of General Mbamunda’s soldiers, and earlier in the day, they even came here looking for me, but I sneaked into a fridge, and they didn’t find me. I think it’s rather unlikely they will come back anytime soon.

TV ANNOUNCER:

So, Brian, the most important thing for you is to escape now, isn’t it? Have you got any plans prepared yet?

BRIAN:

Yes, I have. I sure have! Tonight at nine-o-five, I’ve arranged for a boat to wait at the city harbor, on dock eleven. Her name’s Lucia and the boatman will take me to the other side of the border—over to Taxila—

TV ANNOUNCER:

Well, Brian, are you sure it’s safe to say… I mean, isn’t it dangerous to reveal—

BRIAN:

Of course, it’s dangerous, Michael! Of course, it is, but right now, I have no other option but this boat. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you. My cellphone just broke, so I’m now using the landline here. Its number is 0093 99 099, which is funny because the place’s address is also 99 Kusulu Street. You can contact me for one final report tonight before I go. The entire building is empty, so it’s perfectly safe to call.

TV ANNOUNCER:

Brian, Brian, please don’t reveal—

BRIAN:

Michael, I gotta go now! I think I hear military personnel down on the ground floor. I need to hide, and I’ll try the library this time because the soldiers might have come to check out the fridge, you know. I saw a perfect hiding place between the second and third shelves in the Classics section. There’s a big enough chest there. So bye-bye, Michael! I’ll get in touch as soon as I can!

TV ANNOUNCER:

Well, goodbye, Brian. I don’t actually think we’ll hear from you again, but it’s been nice working with you. And now, other news: our correspondent revealed a massive fraud at a nursery school on Barnet’s 33 South Street. As it seems, a few ounces of ingredients have been shaved off every child’s portion daily, and the accumulated amount of food has been sold back on the market every month. Doris Witherspoon is on the street to tell us what exactly is happening and where the money from this filthy illegal deed goes.

DORIS:

What? What did you just say, Michael? Are you nuts?

TV ANNOUNCER:

Pardon me?

DORIS:

Are you out of your fu**ing mind?

TV ANNOUNCER:

Doris, I don’t understand!

DORIS:

You don’t understand?! What’s the matter with you, you fu**ing jerk? How dare you mention my full name on national fu**ing TV? My fu**ing kid’s in this school, you fu**ing moron!

TV ANNOUNCER:

Oh, I’m sorry, Doris! I didn’t know that! I’m so sorry!

DORIS:

You’re sorry?! You could’ve just said Doris, but n-o-o, no! You had to say it all, right?

TV ANNOUNCER:

I don’t know what happened. I flipped out!

DORIS:

Sure, you flipped out, you miserable son of a b*tch! My kid’s there, not yours! Do you know what it’s like to have a kid at this age? Do you know how hard it is to find a nursery these days? You, mother-fu**ing piece of s**t! You damn imbecile! I wanna… I’m gonna… you little… you filthy… you stinky fu**ing di**head… j**king off as*hole… damn, fu**ing dipsh*t… dumb*ss… SUCKER!

TV SCREEN:

zzz…zzz…zzz…