An Interview with Father Black Father Black is a Private Investigator or a Mr Fix-It in the future urban super-embryo called Monstropolis. He is usually a fictional character, but has now come alive temporarily in our own reality. As I’ve written him into a fabric of fiction many times in short stories, I thought it could be interesting to hear what he has to say now that he is on our side of the reality-fence, so to speak. Carl Abrahamsson: How do you feel now that you’re in a different reality? The real reality? Father Black: Well, nothing surprises me much anymore. It’s certainly cleaner here, more well-ordered. But human beings are rotten to the core regardless if it’s here or there or now or then. Things will change, believe me. They will change for the worse. CA: I’ve often wondered if you, as a fictional character, consciously experience that you have a sentient awareness even when I’m not writing you? FB: Sure. I can tell when...

  Here is the second Father Black story, in which we see a crime of passion perpetrated against the good Satanic Private Investigator himself. When someone steals Father Black’s signed first edition of Joseph Conrad’s Victory at the Monstropolis Bibliophile Society, it could mean mayhem. Where to look, how to retrieve the book, and, most importantly, who should be brutally punished for this unforgivable crime?   Father Black: Black Mail ”The world is a bad dog. It will bite you if you give it a chance; but I think that here we can safely defy the fates.” (Joseph Conrad)   – Thank you, Father Black. I’ll deposit the money later today. You have been of great help. We stood up and shook hands. The man looked so sad. I couldn’t really blame him. A dark-haired, middle-aged man who had just received a bulging folder of incriminating evidence. I had taken secret pictures of his wife in intimate congress with one of his business partners. I knew immediately that...