George O. Smith 24 min read

Someone behind him in the dark is toting a needle-ray, the impression so strong he can almost read the filed-off serial number, but the crooks have gone collegiate since the Rhine Institute opened.

George O. Smith's 1954 story is a fast psi-powers and social-SF mystery in a telepathic future. Sharp, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a hard-boiled tale where ESP is real and the underworld has learned to use it, and a man with his own talents must out-think a mind-reading killer.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

24 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).