"Like Penelope, Joseph Jung the mutant gorilla detective was top of my list of characters I'd love to put at the center of a story. A tough guy ape with the soul of a poet was made to order in this noir-ish tale of romance and all the dangers that go with falling for the wrong woman. We're all suckers when it comes to that special someone, and if a detective doesn't make bad decisions when his heart is involved, he's not much of a detective at all, if you ask me."
— Author's Notes
Greyback in Blue is a Science Fiction short story written by A. Lee Martinez and published in the 2013 anthology book Robots versus Slime Monsters. The story is set after the events of the novel The Automatic Detective, following the career of the mutant gorilla detective Joseph Jung who's hire to procure a package for an attractive telepathic gorilla. Unfortunately for him, she's not the only one after the package.
Greyback in Blue provides examples of:
- Femme Fatale: Faye Darrow is an attractive temptress (by gorilla standards anyway) who manipulates his brain waves to instill loyalty in Joe through his male instincts so that he could procure a MacGuffin for her.
- MacGuffin: Faye hires Joe to procure a stuffed animal monkey that was given to her by a human that was kind to her. She wouldn't go for it herself because there's an entire conspiracy of telepathic animals that want the monkey too. The monkey is actually a container for a rare element that the Pilgrims possessing many of the animals in Empire City use to reproduce.
- Puppeteer Parasite: It's revealed that the various telepathic animals aren't mutants, but a race of Pilgrims that have taken possession of various Earth animals.
- Telepathy: Most of the animal mutants, later revealed to be Pilgrims possessing regular animals, in the story are telepathic and communicate by speaking directly to Joe's brain.
