The Copper Quarter: Crain Dalton, #1

By Richard Stooker

The friendly man shocks the bar by paying for everybody's drinks with a silver quarter. His ruthless killing in the street outside surprises nobody.

When private detective Crain Dalton seeks out the beautiful widow, he uncovers a plot to buy local elections with the only kind of money worth anything anymore -- silver and gold, once again illegal to own.

Down the mean streets of the near-future, a man must go . . .

Welcome to the future of the United States:

Economic malaise and poverty and want for the vast majority of people.

Ecological decay.

Lots of paper money that buys nothing.

Criminal gangs and politicians cooperate to run the government, and split the swag.

Big cities deteriorating into hellholes.

A lot like the present, only worse . . .

Yet, as the world grows more and more amoral, Crain battles the powerful in defense of humanity dignity.

Until now, unavailable for over thirty years! A science fiction, hardboiled private detective short story, The Copper Quarter originally appeared in the February 1979 issue of AMAZING.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: In Dreams Extreme Press
• Release date: Sep 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516344741

Book preview

The Copper Quarter

Richard Stooker

The friendly man shocks the bar by paying for everybody's drinks with a silver quarter. His ruthless killing in the street outside surprises nobody. When private detective Crain Dalton seeks out the beautiful widow, he uncovers a plot to buy local elections with the only kind of money worth anything anymore -- silver and gold, once again illegal to own.

The Copper Quarter Copyright © 1979-2012 by Richard Stooker, In Dreams Extreme Press, and Gold Egg Investing LLC

Originally published by Ultimate Publications in AMAZING February 1979

The Behind the Scenes Story of The Copper Quarter and The Wrong Bettor Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stooker, In Dreams Extreme Press, and Gold Egg Investing LLC

Cover, book and graphic design Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stooker, In Dreams Extreme Press, and Gold Egg Investing, LLC.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Published by In Dreams Extreme Press

http://www.InDreamsExtreme.com/

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between characters in this story and real-life people, alive or dead, is strictly coincidental.

The Copper Quarter

Ten minutes before his murder, the stocky, dark-complexioned man next to me in the bar snorted, slammed the Post-Dispatch down on the counter and drained the last of the beer in his Busch glass with deep gulps. He pushed the four-page paper towards me along the fake-wood plastic top and pointed to the picture of Jules Duncan, smiling with a toothy grin, the independent Whole Earth Party candidate for president.

Know what he says he’ll do now? the stocky man said. "Use all our shit