George O. Smith 47 min read

Gordon Andrews lies slain in a sealed room, no struggle, no fingerprints, the safe emptied, no moisture despite the storm, a locked-room murder only an open-minded investigator can solve.

George O. Smith's 1959 story is a clever psi-powers space-opera mystery. Sharp, ingenious golden-age SF. Read it for a first-rate SF detective tale where the classic sealed-room puzzle meets a science-fictional solution, and a sharp investigator must think past the impossible to catch a killer who left no trace.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

47 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Virgil Finlay