In Favour of Fools

These Foolish Things, #1

A  Science Fiction Comedy introducing Philip Humphrey Chandler as the socially inept hero who likes beer, coffee and breasts - but not necessarily in that order.

Phil is private investigator; he's got a computer and a comfy chair, and he knows how to use them. 

He doesn't get all sweaty chasing the bad guys; not when his fingers can do the work as he sips his coffee and looks forward to a nice cool pint. He doesn't wrestle them to the ground, with a quick quip and a steely gaze; not when he can sit in his comfy chair and dream about the girl behind the bar; the one with the breasts. 

Then he meets the ex-wife of a missing crime lord, and everything changes. Suddenly he's squirting to distant planets, finding dead bodies, dancing with aliens, saving a world from the clutches of the cutest of aliens and, for one brief moment, he becomes the richest man in the universe. 

In a tale of treachery, danger, poor customer service and bad jokes, Phil is forced to put aside his relaxed 'let someone else do the work' attitude, and take up arms against the might of an alien empire (well, it's a crowbar actually, and the alien is a little girl; a very tough little girl) and somehow find a way to save the day, and Earth's most valuable commodity, and maybe even his dignity. 

But where does this story really start? 

Of course, for Phil, it's when he first meets the ex-wife of the missing crime lord; it's typical of him to think it all started with him. For Ben, it would be the misplaced bullet; for Millie, it was, of course, the Joke, and for Sam; well your guess is as good as mine. 

In reality, it started much earlier; nine years earlier, with the robbery...