# The Great American Deception

By Scott Stein

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/the-great-american-deception-ceef8abd/

A missing-person case takes detective Frank Harken through a future America enclosed in one enormous mall. His unexpected assistant, Arjay, makes coffee and narrates the investigation. Pairing a cynical detective with an enthusiastic appliance gives the mystery two very different attitudes to its world of shopping, entertainment and excess.

## What makes it funny?

Even behind bars, Arjay answers a police officer’s demand for coffee with efficient service and a spare hand for a salute. His attention can also wander toward a woman named Nutella, whose scent is especially distracting to a coffeemaker.

### The comedy at work

Arjay narrates a hard-boiled investigation with appliance enthusiasm, treating coffee service as urgent business. Stein enlarges the shopping mall into an entire society, giving the detective’s familiar underworld an excess of sales pitches and consumer diversions.

### Try this if…

Detective-fiction conventions are part of the joke, so familiarity with gruff investigators and dubious clients helps. A taste for talkative narrators, puns and literary references will matter as much as an interest in future technology.

### Good to know

Arjay frequently interrupts with footnotes. Kirkus notes that the mystery still follows a twisting detective plot while avoiding gratuitous sex and extreme violence.

## What to expect

- Genre: Mystery · Science fiction
- On the shelf: Private eye & detective
- Kind of humor: Absurdism · Parody · Satire · Wordplay
- Format: Novel
- Length: 261 pages (ebook)
- Audiobook: 7 hr

## Sources & further reading

- Book information: [The Great American Deception (Unabridged) Apple Books audiobook listing](https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/the-great-american-deception-unabridged/id1513421095)
- Book information: [The Great American Deception by Scott Stein on Apple Books](https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-great-american-deception/id1550465738)
- Review: [Kirkus review](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/scott-stein/the-great-american-deception)
- Review: [Independent Book Review](https://independentbookreview.com/2020/05/12/great-american-deception)
- Author commentary: [Drexel author interview](https://drexel.edu/coas/news-events/news/2020/July/a-robust-caffeinated-comedy-the-great-american-deception)
- Publisher: [Tiny Fox Press: The Great American Deception](https://tinyfoxpress.com/product/the-great-american-deception)