The Long Goodnight (And Also a Parrot)
At two in the morning, private eye Rex Coldwater walks into the Ninth Precinct to report a murder. His own. Somebody has poisoned him with something that makes his hands glow, and he has until sunrise to find out who.
It is a serious story, told completely straight. There is rain in it, and a nightclub called the Blue Canary, and a singer with a problem, and a grey parrot called Alibi who repeats things he should not. Mortimer narrates as Rex, in the first person, wearing a hat indoors.
The usual suspects
- Rex Coldwater, private eye. Poisoned. Glowing. Running out of night.
- Alibi, a grey parrot who was there for everything and remembers all of it.
- Delphine, who sings at the Blue Canary and needs a detective badly.
- Lieutenant Brannigan, Ninth Precinct, who will not open a file until there is a body.
- Lazlo Crane, who owns the coffee, the club and most of the waterfront.
- Moe, whose diner nobody visits for the coffee.
- And Gary. Nobody knows why he is in this book either.
Nine chapters
- I Want to Report a Murder
- Nobody Goes to Moe's for the Coffee
- Blue Light, Low Music
- Two Sets of Books
- The Docks
- Come Back When You're a Body
- Spin Cycle
- Last Streetcar
- The Long Goodnight
Fifty-four pages and four endings. Book Two adds a new card, Purple Prose, for swapping the similes that hold this city together, and the Case Files, where your Bookmarks earn Bronze, Silver and Gold across every game you play.
Mortimer, narrating as Rex"In this town, every word is a suspect."
Book Two is brand new. Some of its pictures are still being cut out and pasted, so a few scenes are wearing sketches for now.