
BY MARK PHILLIPS
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In the chill of 1971, a seasoned FBI director summons a rising agent to the heart of a baffling investigation. The case is framed in the language of old American fears—enemy aliens, radicals, subversives—yet it points toward a mystery that feels more sci‑fi than spy thriller. As the director’s desperation grows, he pushes the agent to dig into conference tapes, old childhood reads, and a cryptic nickname that haunts the files: “that sweet little old lady.”
The narrative follows the agent’s uneasy plunge into a labyrinth of government paranoia, covert meetings, and a looming sense that humanity may be standing on the brink of something far larger than any Cold‑War threat. With atmospheric dialogue and a dry, wry humor, the story captures the uneasy blend of bureaucracy and wonder, leaving listeners eager to hear how the first clues unfold and what the “sweet little old lady” might really represent.
Language
en
Duration
~3 hours (202K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2007-11-29
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1927–1987
A prolific mid-century science fiction and fantasy writer, he became especially well known for the Lord Darcy stories, where detective fiction meets an alternate world shaped by magic. He also wrote heavily for the pulp magazines of the 1950s and 1960s and collaborated with other major SF writers.
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1933–2002
A prolific American science fiction writer, he built a career that stretched across more than 50 years and ranged from sharp satire to fast-moving adventure. He also wrote under several names, leaving a large and varied body of work for genre readers to discover.
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