About Sibyl Sue Blue:
A thrilling, ground-breaking story of crime, mystery, action, and romance:
Stop a murder, save two planets!
Who she is: Sibyl Blue, single mom, undercover detective, and damn good at her job.
What she wants: to solve the mysterious benzale murders, prevent more teenage deaths, and maybe find her long-lost husband.
How she’ll get it: seduce a millionaire, catch a ride on his spaceship, and crack the case at the edge of the known galaxy.
“Rosel George Brown’s long-overdue first novel, SIBYL SUE BLUE, is something, believe me, else…froth and fun and furious action.”
— Judith Merril
Excerpt:
Sibyl awoke in the depths of night to a telephone that had been ringing a long time. It had left lightning forks through the darkness of her mind. She got up groggily and switched it on, tucking the button in her ear so the conversation wouldn’t wake up Missy. It was Lieutenant Brandt.
“Oh boy,” he said. “Oh boy, did you manage to stir things up. What’s the matter? Were you drunk?”
Sibyl was still trying to swim out of the oceans of her sleep. “What did I do? Tell the truth, I’m still half asleep and I don’t remember—”
“Come immediately to headquarters and be prepared to answer questions. I’m at a C meeting at the moment. You are reported as having disappeared in company with a vicious Centaurian. Helpless little you. A youth named Jimmy Stour is having histrionics about it and members of the League for Centaurian Equality are out for his blood for calling the police during a C meeting where benzale is being traded about. Then the Centaurian—a big beast of a Centaurian named Rrinn—accused you of man-handling him and he’s got broken teeth to prove it. We’ve got to arrest him for carrying benzale cigarettes and I’ve got a million teen-agers to question and even so, some got out—probably carrying benzale.”
“I’ll be right there.” That idiot Jimmy!
“You go to headquarters.”
“No. If Rrinn’s given any teen-agers those benzale cigarettes of his I think we’ll have another murder.”
Sibyl thumbed off the telephone and got herself a cup of coffee and took out a fresh blouse. Maybe Jimmy would know who Rrinn had given cigarettes to and where they might have gone, in case they got out before Brandt got there to confiscate the cigarettes.
Sibyl smeared on her youth creme quickly and straightened her wig. Something in those special cigarettes brought suicide and… murder? Sibyl should have gone straight back to the C meeting. Why hadn’t she thought of that right away? After the dream?
She went out into puffs of light rain and taxied to Old Town. The C house sounded noisy now, with the front door open and a knot of curious people watching the police car and Stanley Rauch at the door and people milling about on the inside stairs.
“It’s me,” she told Stanley, flashing her card and lifting her wig briefly.
“This time I know,” Stanley said admiringly.
Sibyl went on up and Jimmy was so glad to see her he almost cried.
“I’m sorry if you were worried,” Sibyl said, feeling like a real fink. “I went outside with that Centaurian for some fresh air and somebody hit him so I ran, I should have run back into the C house but it was easier to run the other way so I did and I took the sidewalks home. Then I thought I ought to come back so I hired a taxi and the door was open so it looked safe and I came on up.”
“If you’d only give me your phone number,” Jimmy groaned. “Or tell me where you live. When you disappeared I didn’t know what to do. Where to start calling or anything. So I called the police and now it’s a real mess, with the benzale and all. And everybody thinks I’m anti-Centaurian because I called the police. Oh, Sibyl!”
Sibyl hated herself. Jimmy would get over this, and her, but it would take a long time and it was a dirty trick to use him like this. How can you walk through another person’s life and not break things?
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About Rosel George Brown:
Her hit 1966 novel, Sibyl Sue Blue a.k.a. Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue, poised her at the edge of superstardom. Sadly, her life was cut short by lymphoma in 1967, snuffing out one of the brightest lights of science fiction’s Silver Age. It has been our pleasure to “rediscover” this lost luminary, bringing her work to life for a modern audience.
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