The Longsnozzle Event

Hal Annas delivers a sly, fast-paced Space Age noir in which the galaxy itself becomes both crime scene and conspiracy. Len Zitts, a sharp-witted detective navigating a future where humanity has spread across countless worlds, takes on a murder case involving weapons stranger than any star system and enemies who operate in the shadows between planets. The setup is classic hardboiled, but Annas loads it with absurdly specific futuristic detail and a knowing wink at the conventions he's playing with. Planets have personalities. Alien bureaucracies gum up the works. The weaponry is bizarre enough to warrant the title. It's a genre mashup before that term existed: part space opera, part detective procedural, part satirical sendup of the detective novels and science fiction serials that inspired it. The result is a book that moves at pulp speed while quietly subverting the testosterone-soaked heroics of its contemporaries. For readers who want their science fiction with a smirk and a murder to solve.