Countdown Phoenix

By: Clint Gage, Evan Gaustad

Narrated by: Clint Gage, Evan Gaustad

She turns to look at me stoically. “I’m so sorry.” Then, the force of her hits my face like an openhanded slap.

There are only a few weeks left before an asteroid destroys the planet. It’s the countdown, and all of humanity is just waiting for the end. In Phoenix, AZ, the sheriff’s department and National Guard are battling for supremacy, gas is as good as cash, and elementary school kids are out for blood. Most people in town have become the worst versions of themselves.

Except for Dutch Kovaks, private detective.

Dutch wants to right some wrongs, help a few people in need, and use the days he’s got left for good. Most of all, he wants to track down a bottle of gin.

When a femme fatale by the name of Elyssa Trachsel asks Dutch to find her missing husband, our hero gets sucked into a world of intrigue, double-crossing, futuristic weapons, and semi-poisonous booze made in his own bathtub.

As soon as he takes the case, he’s tailed by sheriff’s deputies, kidnapped by the National Guard, and gets no help from his old friend Jennifer Cairo, a former beat cop who became chief of police when the entire Phoenix PD up and left to enjoy the countdown.

Every second is more dangerous than the one before, making Dutch wonder if he was right to become a detective in the waning days of life on Earth. Will he be killed by one of his newfound enemies, or will he survive long enough to explode in a ball of fire with the rest of the planet?

From the writers who brought you It’s Not the End of the World comes the second title in the Sisyphus Series. A noir detective story packed full of funny. It’s The Maltese Falcon meets The Big Lebowski.

©2019 Evan Gaustad (P)2022 Clint Gage