Twelve Times Zero

A murder on Earth. A love triangle gone deadly. But the truth lies nowhere on this planet. When a man is killed and both his wife and her lover stand accused, investigators quickly find themselves out of their depth. The crime scene yields impossible evidence: a substance that shouldn't exist, radiation signatures from beyond the solar system, and a witness who describes something that can't be seen. As the investigation deepens, the accused lovers make a startling discovery about what really happened that night and who was really pulling the strings. Browne's 1952 sci-fi noir blends the hardboiled urgency of a murder trial with the unsettling wonder of first contact. The result is a genre-bending novella that asks whether justice can ever truly be served when the scales of accountability extend across light years. For fans of early science fiction, noir enthusiasts, and anyone seeking a quick, intelligent read that courtroom drama with cosmic mystery.