
Kenneth Malone, a hulking FBI operative with a penchant for night‑time wanderings, finds his life upended when a seemingly ordinary street‑side encounter spirals into a baffling mystery. After a seductive stranger lures him into his sleek red Cadillac, Malone awakens under a solitary streetlamp with a pounding head and no memory of how he got there. The surreal scene sets the tone for a case that blends hard‑boiled detective work with off‑beat, almost psychedelic twists.
As Malone scrambles to piece together the missing moments, he confronts a world of telepathic spies, strange experiments, and a city that feels both familiar and oddly distorted. The narrative balances witty banter, vivid noir imagery, and a creeping sense of unease, inviting listeners to join an unconventional sleuth on a quest for answers that may be as elusive as the dream he just left behind.
Language
en
Duration
~5 hours (296K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Greg Bergquist, Bruce Albrecht and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2008-01-28
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1927–1987
A lively, versatile voice in mid-20th-century science fiction and fantasy, he wrote everything from space adventure to clever mystery-fantasy crossovers. He is especially remembered for the Lord Darcy stories, which blend detective fiction with an alternate world shaped by magic.
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1933–2002
A prolific American science fiction writer, he published novels and stories for decades under his own name and several pseudonyms. He is especially remembered for lively, humorous work and for collaborations with Randall Garrett, including stories about the character John Buckner.
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