Writing Exercise: the Inspector Teddy Swann Mysteries

[StillStunned]

Spinning off from the Fan Fic challenge thread (see this post and beyond - thanks for the inspiration, @redgarters).


"On another note, I just saw this picture and now I'm obsessed with writing a swirling french detective romance about that guy, except obviously she's a suave and dapper lesbian (you can all see it, right?)"

"It was the heist of the century, and I was the first name on their speed dial: Inspector Teddy Swann. Solving crimes and looking sexy as fuck."

Neo-noir? Camp? Gender-swapping? Romance? Hard boiled crime fiction? Maybe even urban fantasy...?

"I won't talk! You can't make me talk!"
I took a long drag on my cigarette and leaned forward so my face was close to his. "No, Andre, I can't make you talk." I exhaled. Smoke curled around his ears. "But I can screw up the paperwork. Send you to the women's wing, instead of your cosy little cell here. They have less supervision in the women's wing, Andre, did you know that?" I took another drag and let it out slowly. "Less supervision, but more resentment. More anger. And more strapons. Do you know what they make strapons from in a women's prison, Andre? Do you really want to find out?"

What snippets or scenes can you come up with for our hero/heroine Inspector Teddy Swann? Interrogating suspects, getting bawled out by the higher-ups, seducing witnesses. Playing by their own rules: procedure takes second place to results and looking good. Contemplating the job over a tiny coffee overlooking the Seine, and wondering what prison strapons are in fact made from.

(Remember the usual rules: try to stick to about 300 words, nothing that wouldn't get published story-side, and let's try to keep this fun for everyone!)

 

[StillStunned]

“Is this how they do it in… wherever you’re from?” Commissaire Leblanc was almost frothing at the mouth. On top of his fury at my methods, there was also frustration at yet another unknown in his carefully ordered world. All he knew about me was that Europol had sent me and that I got results. I took care not to share more. A little mystery went a long way.

“What seems to be the problem now, Commissaire?” I knew what the problem was. Disregard for the rules. Rough treatment of witnesses, mostly. But the witness had enjoyed it rough.

“Nom de Dieu, Inspector Swann! I am eager as eager as you for this case to be solved. More eager! But we must not – we may not simply do as we wish to capture these scoundrels!”

Scoundrels. I liked that word. But I also liked being left alone to do my job. “Very well, Sir. I’ll play nicely from now on. My apologies.”

Five minutes later I was leaving the building, umbrella in hand and hat on my head. Fuck M. le Commissaire. My job was to catch criminals. His job was to make it look proper for the papers and the public.

On the street I paused. I still had a lead or two to follow. But little Marie the witness might be able to yield more information, if I plied her correctly.

I set off with a smile on my lips. Marie had seemed very pliable, and I was going to enjoy the plying.

 

[AG31]

Spinning off from the Fan Fic challenge thread (see this post and beyond - thanks for the inspiration,and let's try to keep this fun for everyone!)

I sure hope you're telling the truth about the picture. I've shared it with friends and family. Too much!

 

[StillStunned]

I sure hope you're telling the truth about the picture. I've shared it with friends and family. Too much!

Heaven knows. I've seen it here and on Bluesky. Even if it's fake, it's too good not to do something with.

 

[Bazzle]

Heaven knows. I've seen it here and on Bluesky. Even if it's fake, it's too good not to do something with.

Apparently the guy walked past and got photographed. It's not Ai... just not quite true.

 

[StillStunned]

Ah well. But Inspector Teddy Swann is real enough here!

 

[Bramblethorn]

I hear the missing jewels turned up: https://newsthump.com/2025/10/20/st...und-safe-and-sound-inside-the-british-museum/

 

[Erozetta]

I leaned back on the car, watching Teddy work was such a mindfuck. His take charge attitude and confidence was unwavering, so unlike how he was with me. In private.

I'd been smug upon our first meeting. Looked him up and down then wrote him off as a pretty boy with no substance or grit. He'll never make it, I'd thought.

By the end of the year he had a dozen cases closed, the office girls falling all over each other trying to catch his eye, and me holding him to the wall by the back of his neck, and my dick pressing forcefully against his ass as I chastised him on the cases he hadn't closed.

Teddy preferred a rougher touch, and I was more than happy to oblige. But just once I wished he'd give me the go ahead to push forward. To ease myself into him, but he hasn't, so I don't. The threat of it is enough for him, the desire lingering between us sets his mind aflame. And each time he calls on me, I know he's close to solving another case and merely needs a push to get his mind to work the way he needs it to.

I am his strength, but he is my heart.

He doesn't know that.

When I look at him now, I see the potential of a life I never imagined. And one I don't know if he wants. Perhaps this case will give me the opportunity to test those waters.

Would a kiss be welcomed? Or does he only want brute strength?

I needed to know.

With one year gone, I wouldn't let another pass with this question hanging over my head. Would I?

 

[redgarters]

YES!

---
It was the precise tilt of the hat that made my breath hitch and my heart pound. Perfectly sloped over her right eye and forward just enough to make her lift her chin at everything and everyone. Coupled with the perfectly tailored three piece and a shimmering, royal blue tie that matched her eyes, the effect was devastating.

Standing in the Louvre, among the empty jewel cases and the broken glass, being brought in on this crazy case was the biggest moment of my detective carreer.

It was dwarfed by the sheer mass of her suave aura.

I leaned to my partner, whispering. "Merde, Joelle, who the hell is that?"

Joelle stared at me in disbelief.

"Inspector Swann... Europol? The Van Gogh mystery last year? Seriously, Manon?"

I felt like an idiot. "But I thought he... I mean she... was a man..?"

I didn't hear Joelle's answer because right then an impossibly blue eye caught mine and Inspector Swann turned our way, the umbrella casually trailing a path by her side.

She moved like a leopard, explosive power hidden by perfect grace. I watched her glide across the room towards us, an impossibly cool paradox of a woman, like Hymne á L'amour remixed with Pookie. Piaf and Brel swaying in her step, Aya Nakamura burning provocatively in those calculating eyes.

"Enchanté détective. Théodora Swann, Europol."

I snapped out of the trance as she offered her hand, scrambling to wipe from my mind the images of that perfect nose buried in my dark curls, those eyes arresting mine over the slight swell of my mound.

"Madame Inspecteur," I managed, voice trembling.

The warm touch of her fingers travelled from my hand through my body like 10.000 volts. She was radioactive. I was the disaster zone.

It was going to be a long day.

 

[PennyThompson]

Lieutenante Geneviève Tautoa did not expect her first week of deployment with the Paris division of Gendarmerie Nationale to include crowd control during a jewel heist at Musée du Louvre, it was simply too fantastical, too much like a movie.

And when Inspecteur Swann approached and commandeered her as armed escort as they began collecting evidence and conducting interviews, it truly felt surreal. The inspector was pristinely dapper, the most put-together person she had ever met.

Geneviève could not deny an immediate attraction, but the inspecteur seemed to be entirely disinterested in intimations of sex or romance, either from her or from the handsome male Gendarmerie who also had eyes for Swann.

That changed, however, three weeks into the investigation. Inspecteur Swann was interrogating a suspect, Lt. Tautoa standing watch in the corner of the cinderblock room.

Swann's technique was casual and patient, as if they were always flitting on the edge between boredom and curiosity, not truly invested in whether the suspect was truthful or lying, investigation via negging.

After two hours of such disinterest, the suspect was practically begging for the inspector's attentions. "Alright, I confess... I rented the ladder and the work van. I did not know the names of my coconspirators, we operated with aliases at all times."

Inspecteur Swann leaned forward in their cold steel chair, suddenly focussed and attentive. Their eyes dilated widely, turning to dark pools, the better to swallow up their prey. Geneviève could see that their breathing had become heavy, and that their thighs were clenching and unclenching within their expensive woolen trousers. If she saw anyone else in the world behaving in this way, she would have assumed that they were aroused.

Geneviève gasped with sudden understanding. Inspecteur Teddy Swann was a Confessosexual!

 

[redgarters]

The smoke curled up from the Moroccan cigarette held up between two fingers, like it had been left there absent mindedly while the owner of the hand was busy with more important things.

"You can't smoke in here."

Inspecteur Swann just stared at the man, like she had more important things on her mind than if the general ban on smoking in French public buildings applied to her.

"You heard me, putain?"

The guy's head was shaved bald and he looked like he smoked a few packets a day himself. Maybe he was just pissed that Swann hadn't offered him one of those thin brown cigarettes, or perhaps her silence was getting to him.

We'd been in there for 25 minutes. She'd pulled the chair away from the table, sat down, legs crossed easily, and just stared. Then she glanced over the file she'd brought and threw it offhand at the table, open on the guy's mug shot and considerable rap sheet.

He broke his silence when she casually lit the cigarette, staring at him like he was the most boring mollusc on the bottom of a leaky boat on the Seine.

Looking dashing in just a vest and shirtsleeves, she rested her elbow on the plastic arm of the chair, the cigarette slowly burning a few centimeters from her right ear.

I was in there as a secondary. She'd commandeered me from my desk with a simple "Détective De Ville, with me" and told me to shut up and look bored.

I could shut up, no problem. Keeping my heart rate down and looking bored, locked in a small room with my objet de désir, that was another story.

"Cut the shit flicailles, what do you want? What the fuck is this?!"

Swann dusted invisible lint of her knee, uncrossed her legs, took a last pull of the cigarette and put the stub out on the guys mug shot. Right on his nose.

Then she looked up.

"Your cousin, where is he?"

"What the fuck? My cousin who?"

Swann pursed her lips. The guy ranted for half a minute or so.

When he shut up she narrowed her eyes.

"Monsieur Jardin, your cousin Laurent was seen leaving a scooter behind a café in Le Marais ten minutes after priceless jewels were stolen from the Louvre this morning. His clothes and backpack matched one of the thiefs' attire perfectly, and while you and your brothers are mostly low life pimps and drug pushers, your cousin has been aspiring to... shall we say higher criminal ambitions? Now, I would like to stop looking at your ugly broken nose, so are you going to tell me where I can find Laurent or do I have to call Dritan Hoxha and tell him who supplied his sister's daughter with the heroin that killed her?"

I've never seen a suspect go so suddenly white and quiet. I struggled to keep the bored look on my face. The head of the Albanian mafia in Paris wasn't a name to throw around. Even police officers tried not to invoke the wrath of 'Le prêtre' by uttering it out of turn.

"How...? You wouldn't... you're a cop, you can't do that..."

"Just like I can't smoke in a police station, monsieur Jardin?"

The stare was no longer bored. The icy blue eyes now bored through Hassad's skull. He clamped his mouth shut, but he was sweating.

Swann was eerily still. The long fingers reached for the inscribed silver cigarette case and lighter sitting on the table, her eyes never leaving his.

The click of the lighter carried the heavy tones of inevitability.

Jardin was singing before the smoke slipped out from her rosy lips