Back to Julie

Heck, a wisecracking hard-boiled narrator with a gift for "side-shuffling" into other dimensions, gets pulled into a crooked political scheme when the corrupt Honest John Krasnow offers him a hefty payoff. The job sounds simple enough: travel naked to a parallel world, retrieve a priceless secret, and hand it over. But Heck's cynical assignment quickly becomes a sharp, comic ride through crime, politics, and speculative science. Krasnow has learned of Heck's abilities after a check-kiting scandal lands him in the District Attorney's office, and he wants the formula for a truth-enforcing gas from Timeline Seventeen Point Zero Eight, a nearly identical world where lying is physically impossible. Posing as a researcher, Heck infiltrates this strange society, where he meets Julie, a warm and intelligent file clerk whose presence gives the mission an unexpected human center. As he learns the workings of the truth-gas world, he secures both the formula Krasnow craves and an antidote for himself. But with power, deception, and ambition closing in, Heck begins to question the deal—and chooses Julie, and his own conscience, over Krasnow's corrupt dream. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.