G.G. Fickling

This book is entertaining in ways partly intended and not. It was meant to be an almost softcore, racy, mystery about a sexy woman private detective named Honey West. It is set in Los Angeles and southern California in the late 1950s, when author G. G. Fickling wrote it. (He followed up with several more Honey West novels but the series lost popularity by 1970.)

In this one, Honey is working a case that leads her to the discovery of a dead man who turns out to be a washed up movie star who has been doing television lately. (Nice historical touch: In the 1950s, Hollywood was divided into movies and television and they did not mix; few could get away with switching from movies to TV.)

Against the advice of the police detective who is working the murder case (he has the hots for Honey but doesn't everyone?), Honey gets involved, even taking a job with the television show the actor was on. When the show is scheduled to film part of an episode on Catalina Island, just off the coast of California, Honey goes along. During the trip, several guests are murdered. The wrong man is naturally suspected. Honey knows better but she cannot prove it and doesn't yet know who the real killer is.

On the island, she continues her investigation, dodging assassins and winning at strip poker in order to get information out of a group of young men. On the return boat trip, Honey finally exposes the real killer, in the process also exposing his true identity, which is a doozy.

A word should be said about Fickling's ambivalent regard for Honey. She is at once a sex object and also a person, and Fickling likes her in both ways and even seems to be identifying with her at times. There is a recognition that Honey is intelligent, resourceful and suffering from the memory of her father's murder years before the novel begins. In some sense, Forrest "Skip" Fickling himself is Honey, at least when he isn't modeling her after his wife, Gloria, whom he incidentally first met on Catalina Island where part of this novel is set. (Mrs. Fickling denied the legend that she helped with the writing; she said, "I was more the sounding board and the technical advisor," giving Mr. Fickling tips on women's clothing and accessories. However, she did admit that she helped to create the character and name of Honey West.)… (meer)

"Kiss for a Killer" is one of the better Honey West novels, albeit that ain't sayin' much. Fans of the 1960s TV series that was based on the Honey West novels will be pleased that Honey's telephone-equipped convertible plays a prominent part in this novel. (She didn't have it in the first novel in the series, "This Girl for Hire.") As does the decadence of mid-twentieth century southern California. The grim murder of a football star--whom Honey had dated--(he was run over by a steamroller) leads to a nudist cult, a charlatan hypnotist, a missing movie star, and, of course, Honey losing her clothes despite her early protestations that she only takes them off to shower.

Honey solves the crime in the end, but not before she gets shot at, kidnapped, beaten up, bitten by nasty critters, and drives a car with tampered brakes off the side of a mountain. As with "This Girl for Hire," the only other Fickling novel I've read, I figured out the killer's trick and/or identity before Honey did. But I am glad to have read this novel even if I don't intend to read any more in this series.… (meer)

http://www.sascha.com/2008/02/cheesy-honey.html A section of the review:

And make sure the names are absurd. Like “Honey West,” the much-banged-around-but-never-knocked-up heroine of a series of pulp novels from the late-1950s to the 1960s by the couple who wrote as “G.G. Fickling.” In Kiss For A Killer (originally published in 1960, and reissued in 2006 by Overlook Press, along with another in the series) Honey finds herself being framed for a series of murders she didn’t commit, in a tale that is laughable even within this often-ridiculous genre.

Honey describes herself as “...a hundred and twenty pounds... Thirty-eight, twenty-two, thirty-six. Something wrong with that?” (P. 32) If one asks the men in the story, the answer is clearly “No!” The women, however, are less taken. A case in point is “Toy Tunny,” a short, slightly pudgy oft-nudist, daughter of a cult leader named “Thor Tunny,” who seeks to thwart Honey at every turn – including Honey’s attempt get out of a jam by seducing Toy’s beau, Ray Spensor. “No nonsense, Miss West,” says Toy. “Lover is a sensitive guy. You’re liable to shake up his molecules. Down, girl.” (P. 77)

I think “Down, book,” is more like it.… (meer)