Long Chills and Case Dough – Brandon Sanderson (2023)

Long Chills and Case Dough by Brandon Sanderson, released in 2023, is part of the author’s Sanderson Curiosities collection – a unique set of lesser-known or experimental works. Set in the 22nd century but narrated in the snappy, slang-drenched tone of 1940s hardboiled noir, the story follows Jack Derrins, a trench coat-wearing, bourbon-swilling private eye navigating a futuristic Chicago plagued by murder, stasis sickness, and mob entanglements. Originally conceived during Sanderson’s early writing career, this tale is both homage and subversion of classic detective fiction tropes, brought to life in a futuristic setting.

Plot Summary

The rain clattered down like a furious drummer in an alleyway, soaking the battered streets of 2151 Chicago and setting the mood just right for a tale gone sideways. Jack Derrins, private investigator and professional loner, kept his fedora low and his trench coat tight, marching through a world that had forgotten everything he stood for. He was a throwback, clinging to the slang and swagger of a noir long extinct, content to drink, sulk, and wait for trouble to knock. Trouble, as usual, didn’t bother knocking.

It came instead through a holo-imager, wearing red lipstick and desperation. A dame named Camilla Ball flickered into existence in the middle of his office, begging for help. Said she’d been framed, her kisser trembling with sincerity. Jack should’ve shut the imager down right then and there. Instead, he listened. And that was his first mistake.

Outside the office, the newsfeeds lit up with footage of Camilla unleashing two military-grade missile launchers into a crowd. Blood, fire, panic – and her face, frozen in a look of pure paranoia. Alici, Jack’s sharp-tongued secretary with more neural implants than patience, called it madness. Jack called it interesting. He took the case.

The leads pointed straight to the police precinct, where Jack once wore a badge. His former chief, Paisley, greeted him like a friend who couldn’t quite forget a betrayal. Jack asked about Camilla. Paisley, wide in the middle and narrow in patience, dropped the hard facts: mind-scan evidence pegged Camilla at the scene. The tech was nearly flawless, matching thoughtwaves like fingerprints. Problem was, Camilla’s record had no close relatives. No sisters, no cousins. No one else who could’ve matched that scan.

Jack wasn’t convinced. The footage rattled him, sure – but not as much as that haunted look in the killer’s eyes. He’d seen that look before. Somewhere. Somewhere deep.

Back at the office, Alici dove into the nets, digging up similar cases from recent years. Four other massacres, all with different perps, all with the same look of unhinged fear. Normal folks turning savage overnight. Their backgrounds were blank slates, like they’d never existed before the blood started flying. Jack’s gut said they were linked, and Alici – despite her skepticism – was starting to agree.

The name Ball turned up again. Not Camilla, but Fran Wellington Ball, her grandmother, long dead since 2031. A photo of Fran matched Camilla’s face almost perfectly. Too perfectly. Jack remembered a face from an old, infamous snapshot – the last image from a doomed space colony, its inhabitants lost to madness. In the center of that image stood a woman with wild eyes. The same eyes. The same face.

Stasis sickness. That was the answer. A rare affliction, discovered too late. People put in deep sleep for interstellar travel would awaken sane, only to spiral into paranoia and destruction within a few years. The doomed colonists had suffered it. Now it seemed Fran Ball had too. But Fran died in 2031. And stasis tech didn’t even exist then.

Unless someone had found a way earlier. Unless someone had frozen Fran not as a patient, but as a corpse.

Jack and Alici followed the trail to a sushi bar run by Big Harold, a man who sliced fish as well as secrets. Harold, blunt as ever, confirmed it: Camilla had been involved with Don Lucrani, the now-deceased mob boss, and things had soured over a missing inheritance. Camilla thought Lucrani was stealing from her – from a trust fund she wasn’t allowed to touch until a timer ran out. A big pot of old family money. Lucrani claimed innocence. He ended up dead.

It started to make sense. Someone brought Fran Ball back from the dead, dressed her up like Camilla, and tried to claim the money. Lucrani found out and got iced for his troubles. Then the sickness took over, and Fran’s mind snapped. Massacre followed. The real Camilla had never fired a shot.

Unfortunately, the mob wasn’t satisfied with theories. Jack and Alici were bagged and locked in a fish locker to await a meeting with Don Rigallo, Lucrani’s successor. Jack, undeterred, smoked a gasper and talked about the past. About why he left the force. About how the system had stopped caring about the poor. He’d gone private because someone had to. Because heroes were all gone, and fools like him were the only ones still trying.

Rigallo arrived with questions, veiled threats, and greasy charm. Jack played dumb. Rigallo, smart enough to keep his suit clean, let them walk.

The next step led them to Insang Trusts, a firm with too much security for a mortuary service and a suspiciously well-kept building. Inside, Jack blew open the door with his customized Colt and found the truth: dozens of metallic cylinders storing corpses. Not bodies waiting to heal, but dead folks frozen in hopes of future revival. Cryogenics – the primitive cousin of stasis – had done the same damage. One of those cylinders had held Fran Wellington Ball.

They found a lab tech erasing records. Too late. The monster was already back.

The real Fran – or what was left of her – stormed into the lab, all fire and steel. Missile launchers roared, plasma beams hissed, and Jack went to work. Null-spheres buzzed like angry bees, intercepting plasma. Missiles collided midair. Jack’s trench coat split as countermeasures fired. Then he raised his Colt and shot not at her head, but at a loaded missile pack. The explosion tore Fran apart. She died again, and maybe this time it would stick.

The lab, wrecked and smoking, confirmed the rest. The revival was all about money. Cryo-clients had their assets invested. After a century, if no one came to claim the fortune, it went to the next of kin. Camilla stood to inherit it all. Insang just needed Fran to live long enough to sign the forms.

Back in the office, Jack found Camilla on the line again. Grateful. Breathy. Dangerous. He gave her the claim number. Told her to take the money and vanish. She offered him a cut, a life, maybe even love. He turned her down.

She vanished like a dream at sunrise.

Jack leaned back in his chair, the bottle of JD swinging open with a tap of his knuckles. The rain was gone, the city still dirty. Another dame, another case, another day.

After all, dames were nothing but trouble.

Main Characters

• Jack Derrins (“Dalley”) – A sardonic, self-styled noir detective stuck in a world that’s long moved on from his vintage ideals. Jack operates from a crumbling Chicago office with a faulty intercom and a fondness for high-proof whiskey. With a sharp wit and sharper instincts, he unravels the complex mysteries of futuristic crime while stubbornly clinging to retro slang and 20th-century gear. His moral compass is skewed, but unmistakably his own, and he’s driven by a nostalgic code of justice.

• Alici Smith – Jack’s sharp-tongued, tech-savvy secretary who constantly clashes with his outdated worldview. Initially skeptical and dismissive of Jack’s antics, Alici evolves into a critical partner in the investigation. Her intelligence, curiosity, and moral grounding challenge Jack’s cynical perspective, making her a modern foil to his noir archetype.

• Camilla Ball – A glamorous, enigmatic woman who hires Jack claiming she’s been framed for a deadly mass shooting. As the plot unfolds, Camilla’s story grows more convoluted, entangled in a family legacy and a mysterious fortune. Her motivations are never fully pure, reflecting the story’s persistent suspicion of appearances.

• Fran Wellington Ball – Camilla’s long-dead grandmother and the true identity behind the killings. Awakened after decades in cryogenic stasis, Fran is driven to paranoia and violence due to stasis sickness, adding a tragic layer to her character. Her return from the dead is both literal and metaphorical, representing unresolved legacies and the dangers of tampering with mortality.

• Don Rigallo – The new mob boss and former right-hand man of the slain Don Lucrani. Smooth, dangerous, and politically savvy, Rigallo confronts Jack not with bullets, but with veiled threats and mob logic. He represents the story’s theme of moral compromise in systems of power.

• Big Harold – The informant who runs a sushi bar that doubles as a dive for Chicago’s underworld. Gruff and efficient, Harold is one of Jack’s few reliable contacts, embodying the gritty street informant of noir tradition within a futuristic setting.

Theme

• Nostalgia and Temporal Displacement – Jack Derrins is a man out of time, both in personality and speech. His noir affectation is more than style; it’s a defense mechanism and identity. This theme echoes in the plot itself, where stasis and resurrection literally bring the past into conflict with the present.

• Paranoia and Madness – Central to the mystery is “stasis sickness,” a condition that slowly unravels the mind of anyone revived from suspended animation. This motif evokes not only fear of future technologies but also the fragile line between sanity and identity.

• Corruption and Moral Decay – The story paints a world where justice is transactional, law enforcement is ceremonial, and mob rule dominates. Jack’s disillusionment with official institutions leads him to seek justice through personal codes rather than laws.

• Technology vs. Humanity – The juxtaposition of high-tech warfare, cryogenics, and neural jacks against Jack’s relic .45 Colt and outdated slang spotlights the clash between progress and authenticity. Despite futuristic advances, human failings – greed, deception, ambition – remain timeless.

• Femininity and Power – Camilla and Alici represent contrasting depictions of modern womanhood: one veiled in traditional glamour and deceit, the other in competency and frankness. Both challenge Jack’s views, testing his assumptions about loyalty, truth, and strength.

Writing Style and Tone

Brandon Sanderson employs a richly stylized pastiche of hardboiled noir prose, layering 22nd-century settings with 1940s detective vernacular. The result is a clever, immersive voice that feels both familiar and alien. Sanderson crafts Jack’s internal monologue with rhythm and flourish, stuffed with idioms like “got myself into a serious pickle” or “gussied up with a bright, inviting shade of red.” These choices evoke a sepia-toned genre world that never existed, amplifying both humor and pathos.

The tone balances ironic detachment with sincere admiration for noir tropes. While some moments verge on parody—over-the-top slang, dramatic metaphors, a bottle of hooch in every drawer—the emotional core remains intact. Jack’s weariness, Alici’s exasperation, and the tragic madness of Fran Ball ground the story in humanity. Sanderson’s affection for genre storytelling is evident, but so is his desire to stretch it—by twisting expectations, fusing styles, and placing a trench-coated detective in the heart of a dystopian sci-fi future.