Happy Policeman
by Patricia Anthony

Description:
In the small Texas town of Coomey, the Torku deliver VCRs. Clothes. Gasoline. Even Twinkees and Dr. Pepper.

It began six years ago, on Bomb Day, when the aliens put up the Line to block out the rest of the world. On all the radio bands there is nothing but static, and beyond the glowing paisley barrier there may be only radioactive waste. Yet in Coomey, life goes on quietly.

Until Loretta Harper, the pudgy Mary Kay rep and perennial homemaker of the month, is found dead in the woods. It's the first murder in six years, and police chief DeWitt Dawson, with a curse, starts his investigation. Did the Torku kill her? Or was it Foster, the town banker turned flower child? Janet--yes even Janet, the police chief's own wife--may be involved.

Both lyrical and humerous, Happy Policeman is a story of everyday people trapped in an existential test tube. A story of duty and rebellion. And adultery. While aliens watch--and wait-- to see if DeWitt will learn the truth about time, responsibility, and universes that leak.