Malcolm B. Morehart 14 min read

Off-duty in the subway, Missing Persons detective Jeff Engel checks each passing face against his card-index mind, and spots a mousey little man with a briefcase marked 'C.G.'

Malcolm B. Morehart's 1953 story is a clever alternate-history and social-SF tale. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a cop's instinct for a familiar face leads him onto the trail of a fugitive stranger than any on his files, and a mystery that reaches beyond the everyday.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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