Killing Cousins

by Fletcher Flora

Willie is an alluring woman. She’s the kind of wife that other men lust for. But when she decides her husband, Willie, had ought to be murdered, the stunning beauty turns deadly. The killer? The man who agrees to help her carry out the devious plot? Larry’s cousin Quincy. Quincy plans how to get rid of the body—how to make it look like Larry had run off and left his wife behind. It’s a grand plan. But will it hold together?

143 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2011

About the author

Fletcher Flora was born in Parsons, Kansas in 1914. Flora began writing soon after returning from World War II. His crime and mystery short stories and novels were published in magazines like Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mr., Cosmopolitan, and in Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery anthologies. He received the Cock Robin Mystery Award for his first hard cover novel, Killing Cousins in 1960. Flora wrote over 150 short stories and 13 novels during his writing career. Three of his works are published under the house name, Ellery Queen. Timothy Harrison was also a pseudonym for his work, Hot Summer.

Reviews

[Dave]

"Killing Cousins" was originally published in 1961 as an Ace double with The Blonde Cried Murder by John Creighton (F-115). In 1964, Four Square Books republished it with the tag line ("Willie was a promiscuous wife... Willie was an unfaithful wife... Wife was a murdering wife.") 

In "Killing cousins," which sounds an awful lot like the phrase "kissing cousins," we are introduced to the country club set in Quivera and told, right at the onset, that its most famous resident by far was Mrs. Willie Hogan and "Willie committed murder"(although a defense attorney might turn it into manslaughter with the right jury). Willie had married Howard Hogan because he was the only son of a prosperous beer distributor and lived in a huge house with a maid. She seduced him quickly, got him to marry her, and then his "tenuous glamour was soon dissipated." Yet, because Willie "was a willowy little charmer with a deceptive air of innocence," she found "compensation elsewhere" and often. After finding her in the act with one such suitor when he came home early one afternoon, they began to keep separate bedrooms. Then, for some crazy reason, Willie became fascinated with Howard's own cousin, Quincy Hogan. He was not her type. He was "kind of a runt." Then, one thing led to another and soon Willie found herself painting her nails and wondering what to do while her dear husband's body rotting away upstairs. 

Neither Willie nor Quincy are portrayed as angels here. She is a serial adulterer who married her husband for the size of his bank account and is so disturbed by his corpse upstairs that she spends her morning painting her nails. It is just like that Elvis Costello song where he sings: "She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake." Quincy is little better as he decides in a second that he is going to help Willie dispose of the body and sheds not one loyal tear for his cousin. Neither at any point are consumed by any guilt or remorse. They are just both cold and calculating even when the noose tightens around them and suddenly there is no escape. Perhaps that is just what Flora does best when he offers us these portraits of people without so much as a twang of conscience and does not even pretend that we should feel any sympathy for them.

[Carla Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

01/2018

I adored this novel, but it is odd. I think in a good way. Something about it feels ungrounded, like it is being told by an improvising storyteller. Like a folk tale. The other one I read by him, Leave Her to Hell, had the same feeling. This darkly funny, light (one murder) crime story has terrific dialogue and hilarious character names. From the early 1960s.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly more interesting then Leave her to hell,but not by much. An quick and easy read to pass some time with in the late hours of the night or early morning

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just way too tame. Interesting plot, but told completely without edge and actually quite unrealistic and unbelievable. Granted current crime-noirs are over the top so not really fair to compare these early 1960s novels with them. But even when compared against contemporaneous novels by Gil Brewer and John D. MacDonald this one is lame.

[Jim Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lightweight crime novel but still fun to read for the subtle humor and irony. A reviewer on another site had this to say and it may explain the writing style to seemed to deliberately keep things on a much lighter level than the subject matter usually calls for.

Flora writes “Killing Cousins” in a breezy and darkly humorous style reminiscent of a good episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”

I think the writing style did a good job of portraying the that idea that Willie was a very superficial person who couldn't really understand the gravity of the situation. Was this a subtle jab at upper middle class wives of 1960?

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent narrator! She shows the story as more comic which makes it far more enjoyable.