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Probable Cause
What does it cost to wait for justice to become legal?
Probable Cause is a psychological novella about restraint, procedure, and the invisible labor behind modern investigations. It follows a federal bureau analyst whose job is not to pursue, confront, or punish—but to observe patterns, document escalation, and wait until action can withstand scrutiny.
The story unfolds through the quiet stages of an intake, surveillance, fatigue, action, and clearance. There are no chases, no dramatic confrontations, no heroic resolutions. Instead, the narrative focuses on time—how it accumulates, how it weighs on the person required to hold it, and how the system demands patience even when patience feels indistinguishable from complicity.
Victims are never shown. Offenders are never centered. Everything exists at a distance—through reports, redactions, timestamps, and internal language designed to remove emotion without removing responsibility.
Probable Cause is not a thriller. It is a restrained, minimalist work of literary psychological crime fiction, examining what remains when a system works exactly as intended—and what it quietly takes from those who serve it.
For readers who value atmosphere over action, ethics over spectacle, and questions that linger after the final page.
Probable Cause is a psychological novella about restraint, procedure, and the invisible labor behind modern investigations. It follows a federal bureau analyst whose job is not to pursue, confront, or punish—but to observe patterns, document escalation, and wait until action can withstand scrutiny.
The story unfolds through the quiet stages of an intake, surveillance, fatigue, action, and clearance. There are no chases, no dramatic confrontations, no heroic resolutions. Instead, the narrative focuses on time—how it accumulates, how it weighs on the person required to hold it, and how the system demands patience even when patience feels indistinguishable from complicity.
Victims are never shown. Offenders are never centered. Everything exists at a distance—through reports, redactions, timestamps, and internal language designed to remove emotion without removing responsibility.
Probable Cause is not a thriller. It is a restrained, minimalist work of literary psychological crime fiction, examining what remains when a system works exactly as intended—and what it quietly takes from those who serve it.
For readers who value atmosphere over action, ethics over spectacle, and questions that linger after the final page.
32 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 19, 2025
3 people want to read
About the author
WMAX VELL
23 books1 followerWMAX VELL is a writer from Ukraine. Autism and ADHD shape an unconventional way of seeing the world, reflected in the distinctive delivery, rhythm, and internal logic of the texts. Writing across multiple genres, he treats genre as a tool rather than a limitation — serving the idea, not the other way around.
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