Public Enemy: Justice in the 32nd Century

Public Enemy by Kendell Foster Crossen takes the familiar police chase and drops it into a future where law enforcement has changed almost beyond recognition. Brad Raynor is a newly minted Public Police Officer, highly educated and equipped with technology that makes hiding extraordinarily difficult. When an armed killer flees across the skies above Nyork, Brad finally gets the action he has secretly wanted. His orders, however, are unmistakable: bring the fugitive back alive.

Crossen gives Brad his high-speed pursuit, advanced weapons, flying police cruisers, and futuristic tracking devices. Then he asks a much more interesting question. What if solving a crime meant looking beyond the person who committed it? In Brad’s world, punishment is designed to repair damage and return offenders to society. Responsibility can also reach someone whose failure created the conditions that allowed another person to break. Brad begins the day dreaming about policemen from centuries earlier. Before his assignment is finished, he has reason to reconsider what being a cop should mean.

Kendell Foster Crossen was born in Ohio in 1910 and built a remarkably varied writing career. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as an insurance investigator and became editor of Detective Fiction Weekly in 1936. He later wrote under numerous names, including Richard Foster, Christopher Monig, and M. E. Chaber. As M. E. Chaber, he created insurance investigator and occasional intelligence operative Milo March. Crossen was also one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America.

Crossen began publishing science fiction in 1951, with early stories appearing in Amazing Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories. Public Enemy originally appeared in the December 1952 first issue of Dynamic Science Fiction, making it a particularly interesting example of Crossen combining his experience with crime fiction and his ideas about a future society.

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Lydbog: 14. oktober 2026