Doublemint Gumshoe

By Phillip Stephens

The first novel written for Twitter is finally available in print (expanded and revised).

When a galactically inept inspector tackles the world's most illusive AI, prepare for apocalypse. Determined to find missing programmer Alyson Sweetcheeks, Detective Bob unleashes a war between a tech conglomerate, a covert cyber gang, the mob, and a malevolent time-travelling intelligence bent on world domination. Will Bob beat astronomical odds to save the girl, the world, and his chances for promotion?

"Stephens takes a genre by the throat and shakes it until it cries, 'uncle.'"

April Grey, Brahm Stoker finalist and author of Finding Perdita.

"A dry humored, pun filled detective novel grounded somewhat in our reality. That's to say, if you like UFOs and pop-culture references in your mysteries, this one's for you."

Dejah Payne, author and illustrator, Princezz comics

"Shades of Thomas Pynchon and Douglas Adams, Phillip T. Stephen's novella is a psychedelic soup of noir and black humor mixed in with some sci fi antics. Detective Bob is not a lovable but perhaps misguided Detective on the case a missing womannamed Allison Sweetcheek. Bob presumes its murder, but he always presumes that. Accompanied by beautiful illustrations by the author, this sexy, funny and very gripping mystery will keep you on the edge of your seats, gripping your sides as you howl with laughter and astonishment at the strange goings on in San Noema, California."

Christine Stevens, editor of the Humor publication "The Haven."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phillip Stephens
• Release date: Feb 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781732997318

Book preview

Praise for Doublemint Gumshoe

Stephens takes a genre by the throat and shakes it until it cries, ‘uncle.’

April Grey, Brahm Stoker finalist and author of Finding Perdita.

A dry humored, pun filled detective novel grounded somewhat in our reality. That’s to say, if you like UFOs and pop-culture references in your mysteries, this one’s for you.

Dejah Payne, author and illustrator, Princezz comics

Shades of Thomas Pynchon and Douglas Adams, Phillip T. Stephen’s novella is a psychedelic soup of noir and black humor mixed in with some sci fi antics. Detective Bob is not a lovable but perhaps misguided Detective on the case a missing womannamed Allison Sweetcheek. Bob presumes its murder, but he always presumes that. Accompanied by beautiful illustrations by the author, this sexy, funny and very gripping mystery will keep you on the edge of your seats, gripping your sides as you howl with laughter and astonishment at the strange goings on in San Noema, California.

Christine Stevens, editor of the Humor publication The Haven.

Introduction

by April Grey

Phillip T. Stephens is my kind of writer. He uses language hard and puts it up wet. Hyperbole holds no horror. He takes a genre by the throat and shakes it until it cries, uncle or at least taps out. He isn’t afraid to mix it up: humor, dark humor, horror, science fiction, fantasy, surrealism, weird noir and gonzo. He does them all. He probably has even more on his palette but those are the stories which I buy. 

I can’t resist really, even to the point of doubling up in my Hell’s Series anthologies—in six books I’ve published eight of his stories. What else can you do but grab his fantastic tales of Lucifer and his annoying, ever happy victim, Pilgrim? While the main story was told in his novel, Raising Hell, addition tales of the two are found in my anthologies Hell’s Mall, Hell’s Heart, Hell’s Bells, and Hell’s Kitties. 

April Grey, a Bram Stoker finalist, is the author of Finding Perdita, Chas-ing the Trickster and St. Nick’s Favor. She edited all seven volumes of the Hell’s Horrors Anthology series.

Story Outline

Detective Bob

A girl vanishes and the worst detective in the world is tasked to chase her.

Biggbrayne

The mob kidnaps Bob and encourages him to drop the Alyson investigation. For that matter, everyone insists that Bob drop the investigat ion.

TynyDyne

A visit to TynyDyne to search Alyson’s office for clues turn up nothing but does spark a fierce debate between conflicting point-of-view narrators.

Buddhoblitz

Members of an online gang warn Bob that finding Alyson could trigger a nanobot apocalypse.

Sally

Bob searches Alyson’s apartment and meets the world’s nosiest neighbor.

**Reboot**

Bob wakes up to a world that has erased Alyson from its records, and is abducted by aliens when he tries to find out why.

Alyson

Alyson finally appears and reveals that Bob was not only barking up the wrong tree, there was no tree to bark up. Or, how do you spell patsy?

Detective Bob

🕘

All that remained in Alyson Sweetcheek’s hotel suite:

one cornflower dress,

one navy dress suit with skirt,

one flash drive, and

six Doublemint gum wrappers.

Six wrappers. Crumpled on the bedspread next to her suit. Silver foil twisting in and out of the iconic paper strip: green arrows over mint green mint leaves on a whirlpool printed in green. 

Sunlight drifted past the jacket which was draped over the desk chair—its shoulders straightened, lapels flat. Dust motes danced in the sunlight path like fairies in a daydream. 

The hotel notified Alyson’s sister Sally. Sally called Alyson’s boss William Zuckerchange. Zuckerchange called the cops. Any sense of urgency collided with the writing on the police department wall: We see this shit a dozen times a day.

Another blonde missing from her room? Low on the list of police priorities. In San Noema a missing blonde was as common as a day without rain, as common as open convertibles on Interstate 5 with occupants risking the sulfur-oxide ambiance to tone their rock star tans, as common as baby in bluebonnet photos in Texas and even though San Noema is a California city, were it in Texas missing blondes would be just as common.

Alyson isn’t blonde. Nor dumb, as Bob would discover, but that fact mattered little. As far as the cops were concerned, if a girl wasn’t attached to the wallets of prominent men willing to write five figure checks to city council campaigns (or the daughters of those prominent men) she couldn’t shake a cop from the schedule.

Instead, they sent Detective Bob.  

He skittered across her room. A six-three praying mantis with matchstick limbs and bony fingers probing for clues. He paraded his sleuthing skills in vain. Sally and the hotel manager ignored him to argue over Alyson’s outstanding bill. 

Bob’s partner Duffy leaned against the door frame, ankles crossed, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. Wrinkles rode his polyester suit, a suit he bought from the clearance rack of the factory-seconds section at Walmart. He struggled to keep his lids open after a night closing down three different cop bars, which might be why his suit looked slept in. Slept in every night since 1966. 

Duffy was destined to make captain. The guy who disappeared when the first bullet flew and reappeared in time to claim the credit. And the commendation. Veins crept from his eyes and down his nose. Five o’clock shadow from the Sunday before last. His hands? Not a tremble or shimmer, petrified by the cheapest booze on the shelf. 

Bob probed every inch and surface, flipping the pillows, pulling out drawers. He crawled under the bed, hooked the knee of his powder blue polyester suit on a nail. Tore a hole. 

He swore under his breath. Oh, feathers. 

Nothing there.

He stood, brushed the bunny dust and dandruff from his shoulder and continued to probe with his best BIC Pen. He poked through the events guide on the desk, pulled a cloth from his side pocket, wiped the dust from his piano wire glasses and poked through once more. 

Sun from the window glanced off the oily spot at the center of his bald pate, fractured like light hitting a disco ball, and blinded everyone in the room. He swore to solve this case. His first solve (far from his first case). A glance at the cornflower dress and the opened curtains revealed the solution like a prize display. Alien abduction. 

Sally stepped with the precision of a model, legs firm, bronze, a chain tattoo on her ankle. She alliterated perky and petite, from her five-one frame to the gentle slope under her pink crepe blouse to her trim tempting hips. 

Aliens? She turned to his partner. Tell me he’s joking. She smelled of cinnamon and sugar. Bob wanted to sprinkle her on toast. 

Officer Duffy pursed his lips tighter than a nip/tuck with Botox. He pulled his iPhone from his jacket and ran his fingers across the screen. No alien activity reported. He pleaded in silence, Don’t say murder. Please don’t say murder. 

Bob ran his hands through the few strands of hair left to comb. Murder then. It must be murder. 

Detective Bob never solved a case. Once he heard a girl’s heart was on her sleeve and launched a murder investigation. On another case he saw a prostitute’s body with a pimp’s knife in her wound and knew the Mayor killed her. Nor was his grandmother, the Mayor, happy to hear the news. 

Called to investigate a death on the beach, Bob saw the man’s body in a shark’s stomach. He arrested the business partner. 

A contestant collapsed into a bucket of hot dogs at a power eating contest on the Fourth of July. Bob suspected a spree killer. He examined a tourist’s corpse between a circus lion’s jaws and accused the bride-to-be. 

The earliest date the department pool picked for his first solve? October 35, 2052. 

Bob studied the Fermion Bay from the hotel window. The sun glittered on the waves like his hopes for the case. 

Duffy texted HQ. It’s murder at 9:35. 

At the precinct, Dispatch Officer Penny Luschlipps won the pool for how much time would elapse before Bob spoke the word murder. Her streak was four. 

Bob adjusted his wire-frame glasses. The casual observer, one who didn’t know Bob was a detective, would notice his thinning red hair, polyester suit, mustard-speckled tie and think, this man’s about to expose himself. Bob exposed himself often, but never his penis. 

Murder explains the facts. The dress, wrappers, flash drive. Vanished from a locked room. Bob traced a finger on the windowpane. 

The manager cleared his throat. The door would have locked when she left the room. Automatic. No mystery, detective. 

Bob lifted the neckline of Alyson’s