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Frank Burly #7
The Fifty Foot Detective
One of a series of comedy/science fiction novels featuring slow-witted detective Frank Burly. By John Swartzwelder, the writer of 59 episodes of The Simpsons.
138 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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317 people want to read
About the author
John Swartzwelder
18 books313 followersJohn Joseph Swartzwelder Jr. is an American comedy writer and novelist, best known for his work on the animated television series The Simpsons. Born in Seattle, Washington, Swartzwelder began his career working in advertising. He was later hired to work on comedy series Saturday Night Live in the mid-1980s as a writer. He later contributed to fellow writer George Meyer's short-lived Army Man magazine, which led him to join the original writing team of The Simpsons, beginning in 1989.
He worked on The Simpsons as a writer and producer until 2003, and later contributed to The Simpsons Movie. He wrote the largest number of Simpsons episodes (59 full episodes, with contributions to several others) by a large margin. After his retirement from the show, he began a career as a writer of self-published absurdist novels. He has written more than a dozen novels, the most recent of which, The Spy with No Pants, was published in December 2020.
Swartzwelder is revered among comedy fans and his colleagues. He is known for his reclusiveness, and gave his first-ever interview in 2021, in The New Yorker. Per Mike Sacks, "Swartzwelder’s specialty on The Simpsons was conjuring dark characters from a strange, old America: banjo-playing hobos, cigarette-smoking ventriloquist dummies, nineteenth-century baseball players, rat-tailed carnival children, and pantsless, singing old-timers."
He worked on The Simpsons as a writer and producer until 2003, and later contributed to The Simpsons Movie. He wrote the largest number of Simpsons episodes (59 full episodes, with contributions to several others) by a large margin. After his retirement from the show, he began a career as a writer of self-published absurdist novels. He has written more than a dozen novels, the most recent of which, The Spy with No Pants, was published in December 2020.
Swartzwelder is revered among comedy fans and his colleagues. He is known for his reclusiveness, and gave his first-ever interview in 2021, in The New Yorker. Per Mike Sacks, "Swartzwelder’s specialty on The Simpsons was conjuring dark characters from a strange, old America: banjo-playing hobos, cigarette-smoking ventriloquist dummies, nineteenth-century baseball players, rat-tailed carnival children, and pantsless, singing old-timers."
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 20, 2019
The only problem is that the jokes come so fast and furious (2 fast, 2 furious even) that you miss some. There's just too much hilarious for the size of the package. It's sort of the way people seem to feel about looking at my nude body: it's too much hilarious for the total volume. How did god pack in so many jokes into that space?
November 10, 2021
Another very hilarious entry in the Frank Burly series, this one bringing back some of the inventiveness of the earlier books. This series has overall done a great job of really living inside some of the cliches and genre fiction it parodies, and in this book it's monster movies and detective fiction itself. Though I'm only using them as breaks between bigger books I'm already looking forward to the next one!
August 16, 2020
I've read all of the Swartzwelder books and this one cracks the top of the list. Like all of the Frank Burly books this one is absurd and hilarious on just about every page. If you only read one Swartzwelder book, read that one. But then read this one. Compare the two for all I care. No one's watching you do it.
December 25, 2019
Hilarious and random, as all Frank Burly novels are, now with plenty of monsters, mad scientists, and Moriarty 2. (The 2 is silent.). And I think we’d all pay good money (perhaps not our own) to see Detectula on the big screen.
October 12, 2025
Amazing as always!
October 14, 2024
Really funny, delightfully silly, some great lines (“The late Jimmy Hatlo was right about when things happen. They happen every time.” “Rome wasn’t built in a day, they tell me. Which I guess means we don’t have to actually get anything done today, if we want to keep up with Rome. We’ve got an extra day to work with. We can take today off if we want.”)
Amidst all the silliness, I found the story to be fun and exciting like an old comic strip or radio show.
Amidst all the silliness, I found the story to be fun and exciting like an old comic strip or radio show.
December 27, 2016
Not much of a plot but, on a joke by joke basis, this is one of the funniest books ever written. Every punchline feels entirely original. Every joke twists in a way you aren't expecting. Every page is a 4-week course on how to write good comedy.
December 28, 2011
Surly Frank Burly is on the case again. Of course all the mayhem is his own fault. I enjoyed this more so than last year's The Last Detective Alive.
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December 10, 2013More Simpsonesque hilariousness from Mr. Swartzwelder.
November 9, 2013
***1/2
November 16, 2012
Laughs on every page. Ridiculous. Nothing is funnier. Nothing!
August 31, 2014
Another Burly classic. Read when not drinking milk.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews