Midwestern Chrome - by Michael Bettendorf (Paperback)

About the Book

A burned-out detective trapped in a cold case finds a curious lead-the severed head of an android who cries for help in the voice of his dead wife. It has her memories. It has her personality. But is it... Elsie? Welcome to the frayed-wire-and-spare-parts autopsy of a near-future Nebraska, lit bright by neon promises and smoldering with broken ...

Book Synopsis

A burned-out detective trapped in a cold case finds a curious lead-- the severed head of an android who cries for help in the voice of his dead wife. It has her memories. It has her personality. But is it... Elsie? Harlan's cold case takes center stage in the novella Our Bird Trills Mechanical, but desperate people willing to do whatever it takes fill the pages: people like Lucian Lucky, an augment-addicted prizefighter who must decide if the cost of winning is worth the size of the purse; or Javier, a love-struck henchman who's fallen for the niece of his violent boss.

About the Author

Michael Bettendorf (he/him) is a writer from the U.S. Midwest. His short fiction has appeared in Drabblecast, Sley House Press, and elsewhere. He works in a high school library in Lincoln, Nebraska- a place he tries to convince the world is too strange to be a flyover state.