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Honey West #1
This Girl for Hire
Sexy Los Angeles private detective Honey West matches wits with four murder suspects as she investigates the deaths of a washed-up Hollywood entertainer, a beautiful woman, and a poisoning victim, in a new edition of a crime novel first published in the 1950s.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
February 9, 2020
Innocence, naivety, ignorance – the PI with the body to moonlight as a bikini model and the face to go along with it conforms to all three. ‘The nerviest, curviest, PI in Los Angeles’ is a blonde bombshell following in her murdered father’s footsteps. H West was once a well-known gumshoe, now with Honey West taking over the family business she faces difficulty in re-establishing the brand, having to overcome male perception and era stereotypes.
THIS GIRL FOR HIRE is a fun, pulpy murder mystery full of cheesy dialogue and little realism (there is a scene where Honey is nearly raped only to then end up playing strip poker with the man and his friends). The first installment in the Honey West PI series is to be taken lightly. G.G. Fickling goes to great lengths to embellish the unbelievable (the killer once unveiled was someone I didn't imagine – it also makes a mockery of the police involved in the case).
There are plot holes by virtue of real life contrasts simply not being plausible (an inability to recognize a murdered person for instance) yet this doesn't come off as a bad thing. In fact, it adds to the pulpy fun feel of Honey West. Her charisma and care-free attitude is refreshing. Her ignorance, almost enough to get her out of many tight situations (and not just her bathing suit – of which there are many references).
The case is simple and linear – a Hollywood type hires Honey West fearing for his life. Soon he’s found murdered proving his fears correct. Shortly thereafter Honey is once again hired by her former clients friend (also in the business) to track down the killer. Suspects drop quicker than shoddy scripts as the conclusion draws near – the mystery certainly kept me guessing.
Despite its shortcomings, THIS GIRL FOR HIRE (pub 1956) is very much a guilty pleasure – it doesn't do much for the literary senses but does satisfy the craving for simple pulp entertainment, easily consumed and equally enjoyed.
THIS GIRL FOR HIRE is a fun, pulpy murder mystery full of cheesy dialogue and little realism (there is a scene where Honey is nearly raped only to then end up playing strip poker with the man and his friends). The first installment in the Honey West PI series is to be taken lightly. G.G. Fickling goes to great lengths to embellish the unbelievable (the killer once unveiled was someone I didn't imagine – it also makes a mockery of the police involved in the case).
There are plot holes by virtue of real life contrasts simply not being plausible (an inability to recognize a murdered person for instance) yet this doesn't come off as a bad thing. In fact, it adds to the pulpy fun feel of Honey West. Her charisma and care-free attitude is refreshing. Her ignorance, almost enough to get her out of many tight situations (and not just her bathing suit – of which there are many references).
The case is simple and linear – a Hollywood type hires Honey West fearing for his life. Soon he’s found murdered proving his fears correct. Shortly thereafter Honey is once again hired by her former clients friend (also in the business) to track down the killer. Suspects drop quicker than shoddy scripts as the conclusion draws near – the mystery certainly kept me guessing.
Despite its shortcomings, THIS GIRL FOR HIRE (pub 1956) is very much a guilty pleasure – it doesn't do much for the literary senses but does satisfy the craving for simple pulp entertainment, easily consumed and equally enjoyed.
May 10, 2020
Honey West in the Movies
In the days before Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith were toting firearms around, Honey West was the sexiest private eye traipsing around the west coast. Slightly provocative in a PG-way, the nine paperbacks in this series are light reading. This one takes Ms. West inside Tinseltown’s movie industry.
In the days before Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith were toting firearms around, Honey West was the sexiest private eye traipsing around the west coast. Slightly provocative in a PG-way, the nine paperbacks in this series are light reading. This one takes Ms. West inside Tinseltown’s movie industry.
March 26, 2012
This Girl For Hire, published in 1956, was the first of eleven Honey West crime thrillers written by Gloria and Forrest E. Fickling under the name G. G. Fickling. The Honey West character is probably better known these days from the 1960s Honey West TV series starring Anne Francis in the title role.
The back cover blurb memorably describes Honey West as the nerviest curviest private eye in LA, with the sleuthmanship of Mike Hammer and the measurements of Marilyn Monroe. That gives a pretty accurate picture of the kind of book this is - it’s trashy, pulpy fun.
Honey’s father was a PI who was murdered and Honey then took over the business. She’s not quite a female Mike Hammer but she does her best. She’s not as violent but she has the attitude and she’s sufficiently adept at judo and street fighting to handle herself pretty well. She packs a .32 revolver but she uses her feminine wiles more often than she uses her gun.
When she needs to find out if a bunch of guys are heroin users she needs to get a look at their arms, so she does the obvious thing - she challenges them to a game of strip poker. OK, that’s not what Mike Hammer would do, but he’d probably approve. And since she’s a good card cheat she figures they’ll end up losing their clothes before she does. It almost works, if only she hadn’t drawn that lousy deuce in the last hand. And maybe it would have been a better idea if she’d started off wearing more than one item of clothing.
The case she’s working on involves the sleazy world of network TV. Former matinee idol turned loser Herb Nelson ekes out a living playing bit roles on TV, including the popular Bob Swanson Show. Now he’s convinced that Swanson is trying to kill him so he engages Honey West to keep him alive. She soon discovers that Herb Nelson is not the only one who thinks someone is trying to kill him, and that just about everyone working on the show would like to murder at least one other person involved with the show.
And apparently these TV people do more than just talk about murder. Corpses start to accumulate at an alarming rate. Honey has landed herself a job on the show, as an actress. She can’t act, but with a figure like hers nobody cares if she can act or not. The only trouble is that she might turn out to be the next victim.
The plot is outrageously convoluted and as the body count rises it gets more convoluted.
Honey is not your classic fictional detective. She doesn’t wait for the evidence to mount up. She plays hunches. At one stage or another she manages to suspect every single character in the book. And she’s not the type of detective to keep her hunches to herself - as soon as she suspects someone she comes right out and accuses them. While she breaks most of the rules for fictional detectives one can’t help suspecting that maybe real-life detectives actually operate more like Honey West than Sherlock Holmes. And she’s nothing if not dogged, and she does get there in the end, and gets there before her pal Mark, the homicide cop.
There’s a fair bit of implied, and even overt, sleaze. Honey is definitely attracted to the male of the species. The violence is fairly graphic for its time as well.
This is very much pulp detective fiction. Great literature it ain’t but it’s entertainingly trashy.
The back cover blurb memorably describes Honey West as the nerviest curviest private eye in LA, with the sleuthmanship of Mike Hammer and the measurements of Marilyn Monroe. That gives a pretty accurate picture of the kind of book this is - it’s trashy, pulpy fun.
Honey’s father was a PI who was murdered and Honey then took over the business. She’s not quite a female Mike Hammer but she does her best. She’s not as violent but she has the attitude and she’s sufficiently adept at judo and street fighting to handle herself pretty well. She packs a .32 revolver but she uses her feminine wiles more often than she uses her gun.
When she needs to find out if a bunch of guys are heroin users she needs to get a look at their arms, so she does the obvious thing - she challenges them to a game of strip poker. OK, that’s not what Mike Hammer would do, but he’d probably approve. And since she’s a good card cheat she figures they’ll end up losing their clothes before she does. It almost works, if only she hadn’t drawn that lousy deuce in the last hand. And maybe it would have been a better idea if she’d started off wearing more than one item of clothing.
The case she’s working on involves the sleazy world of network TV. Former matinee idol turned loser Herb Nelson ekes out a living playing bit roles on TV, including the popular Bob Swanson Show. Now he’s convinced that Swanson is trying to kill him so he engages Honey West to keep him alive. She soon discovers that Herb Nelson is not the only one who thinks someone is trying to kill him, and that just about everyone working on the show would like to murder at least one other person involved with the show.
And apparently these TV people do more than just talk about murder. Corpses start to accumulate at an alarming rate. Honey has landed herself a job on the show, as an actress. She can’t act, but with a figure like hers nobody cares if she can act or not. The only trouble is that she might turn out to be the next victim.
The plot is outrageously convoluted and as the body count rises it gets more convoluted.
Honey is not your classic fictional detective. She doesn’t wait for the evidence to mount up. She plays hunches. At one stage or another she manages to suspect every single character in the book. And she’s not the type of detective to keep her hunches to herself - as soon as she suspects someone she comes right out and accuses them. While she breaks most of the rules for fictional detectives one can’t help suspecting that maybe real-life detectives actually operate more like Honey West than Sherlock Holmes. And she’s nothing if not dogged, and she does get there in the end, and gets there before her pal Mark, the homicide cop.
There’s a fair bit of implied, and even overt, sleaze. Honey is definitely attracted to the male of the species. The violence is fairly graphic for its time as well.
This is very much pulp detective fiction. Great literature it ain’t but it’s entertainingly trashy.
August 13, 2013
There are some similarities between this book and the short-lived television show (a single season with 30 episodes) in that they both have a private eye named Honey West and she is female. Very female. In This Girl for Hire, first book in the series, Honey gets involved with the crazy world of television, first hired to protect an actor (who is murdered), then to find out who tried to poison producer Sam Aces. Between the beginning and the end, we have nine deaths, a narcotics ring, and a really interesting game of strip poker.
During the course of the book, Honey often loses her clothing. At one point she shucks off her dress (she can hardly jump into the swimming pool to save a drowning man fully clothed, can she?), and she seems to have trouble keeping a swimsuit on (gosh, ocean waves are really rough!), but like the characters on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, Honey is always clothed in her virtue and righteousness, and if you think she isn't you might end up flat on you back with a busted jaw or broken nose (or both), wondering what happened.
It is certainly the sort of book that could not be written today, but back in the mid-fifties (the TV series came out in the mid-sixties as a spin-off from Burke's Law)it was naughty fun, but altogether innocent. Forest and Gloria Fickling wrote under the name G.G. Fickling, still a common ploy for fuzzing the gender of a writer, with Gloria contributing plot ideas and fashion sense and Forest providing dead bodies and his typing skills. They wrote eleven adventures for the blonde bombshell who managed to have a .32 at hand, no matter what fashion mishap has happened.
As a detective, Honey has all the virtues of her sex with very few of the faults, plus the added advantage of being able to catch people (especially us dumb ole men) off guard. They always underestimate her, much to their later chagrin. She was raised by her father, a private eye, and took over his business when he was shot (well before the start of the book), so she knows all the tricks of the trade, and then some. She is relentless in her pursuit of justice, never quitting, no matter what. While Honey was hardly the first female detective in fiction, she was one of the first on television.
This is a great book for escapism, for the excitement of the chase, for a glimpse into the world of the fifties...while it is hardly realistic (except for the surprisingly gritty depiction of a drug-riddled television culture, just as it still is now), it is an interesting look into the mores of society filtered through fiction. It is engaging, well plotted and has twists to keep you turning the pages till the surprising end.
During the course of the book, Honey often loses her clothing. At one point she shucks off her dress (she can hardly jump into the swimming pool to save a drowning man fully clothed, can she?), and she seems to have trouble keeping a swimsuit on (gosh, ocean waves are really rough!), but like the characters on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, Honey is always clothed in her virtue and righteousness, and if you think she isn't you might end up flat on you back with a busted jaw or broken nose (or both), wondering what happened.
It is certainly the sort of book that could not be written today, but back in the mid-fifties (the TV series came out in the mid-sixties as a spin-off from Burke's Law)it was naughty fun, but altogether innocent. Forest and Gloria Fickling wrote under the name G.G. Fickling, still a common ploy for fuzzing the gender of a writer, with Gloria contributing plot ideas and fashion sense and Forest providing dead bodies and his typing skills. They wrote eleven adventures for the blonde bombshell who managed to have a .32 at hand, no matter what fashion mishap has happened.
As a detective, Honey has all the virtues of her sex with very few of the faults, plus the added advantage of being able to catch people (especially us dumb ole men) off guard. They always underestimate her, much to their later chagrin. She was raised by her father, a private eye, and took over his business when he was shot (well before the start of the book), so she knows all the tricks of the trade, and then some. She is relentless in her pursuit of justice, never quitting, no matter what. While Honey was hardly the first female detective in fiction, she was one of the first on television.
This is a great book for escapism, for the excitement of the chase, for a glimpse into the world of the fifties...while it is hardly realistic (except for the surprisingly gritty depiction of a drug-riddled television culture, just as it still is now), it is an interesting look into the mores of society filtered through fiction. It is engaging, well plotted and has twists to keep you turning the pages till the surprising end.
August 1, 2025
The authors' original; premise for their private eye was to combine Marilyn Monroe with Mike Hammer. Honey West is a blonde bombshell that took over her father's private investigation office after his death. Not as spicy as I had imagined it to be, certainly not by today's standards. Most of the bedroom shenanigans were carried out by the various suspects during her investigation, but Honey certainly had more than her share of wardrobe malfunctions.
I grew up in Anaheim, CA and Honey West is set in Southern California, is I was familiar with all the locations in the book. Her office was at the corner of Anaheim and Third in Long Beach. Pretty cool, but ... Anaheim and Third run parallel to each other, so there is no intersection of those two streets! That was the one detail in the whole book that actually bothered me. Some of the story takes place in Hollywood. The murder and suspects revolve around the production of a popular TV show, which seems based on exaggerated versions of actual TV celebrities of the late 1950s. Lots of fun.
About two-thirds of the story takes place on Catalina Island. I'm old enough to remember Catalina from the mid-'60s, so, again, this was familiar turf for me. The story really takes you on a great island tour ... lots of action in town, along busy beaches, remote and treacherous bays, coves and caves. If you're not familiar with Catalina Island, you will be by the end of the book.
I was surprised how good the actual mystery was. The story begins on a dark and stormy night in Hollywood when a dead body is discovered and identified as a client of Honey West. So of course, even though this is now a police matter, she remains involved until she can crack the case.
As any good mystery does, there are lots of twists, right up mot the end. The book is short, and so are the chapters. But each section ends with either a surprise reveal. Some are red herrings, many are not, but you are compelled to read the next section immediately.
There are a lot of characters to keep track of in so short a book, but they are all well-connected with plenty of competing agendas and motives. With 1950s Hollywood, it all revolves around ego, money, sex or drugs. Enemies and allies change as often as the tide in Avalon Bay. Every time I thought I had figured out who the killer was, they turned up dead by the end of the chapter! But that still didn't stop some of them!
What I expected to be a fun little trashy book turned out to be a ton of fun. I can recommend this book for a light afternoon of summer reading.
I grew up in Anaheim, CA and Honey West is set in Southern California, is I was familiar with all the locations in the book. Her office was at the corner of Anaheim and Third in Long Beach. Pretty cool, but ... Anaheim and Third run parallel to each other, so there is no intersection of those two streets! That was the one detail in the whole book that actually bothered me. Some of the story takes place in Hollywood. The murder and suspects revolve around the production of a popular TV show, which seems based on exaggerated versions of actual TV celebrities of the late 1950s. Lots of fun.
About two-thirds of the story takes place on Catalina Island. I'm old enough to remember Catalina from the mid-'60s, so, again, this was familiar turf for me. The story really takes you on a great island tour ... lots of action in town, along busy beaches, remote and treacherous bays, coves and caves. If you're not familiar with Catalina Island, you will be by the end of the book.
I was surprised how good the actual mystery was. The story begins on a dark and stormy night in Hollywood when a dead body is discovered and identified as a client of Honey West. So of course, even though this is now a police matter, she remains involved until she can crack the case.
As any good mystery does, there are lots of twists, right up mot the end. The book is short, and so are the chapters. But each section ends with either a surprise reveal. Some are red herrings, many are not, but you are compelled to read the next section immediately.
There are a lot of characters to keep track of in so short a book, but they are all well-connected with plenty of competing agendas and motives. With 1950s Hollywood, it all revolves around ego, money, sex or drugs. Enemies and allies change as often as the tide in Avalon Bay. Every time I thought I had figured out who the killer was, they turned up dead by the end of the chapter! But that still didn't stop some of them!
What I expected to be a fun little trashy book turned out to be a ton of fun. I can recommend this book for a light afternoon of summer reading.
Read
March 17, 2020A long time ago, in a lifetime far far away from here, I was a child (less than 10) watching re-runs of an interesting t.v. show about a devastatingly gorgeous secret agent (I thought) who carried a gun, drove a Jag, and had a pet ocelot. Decades later, I was trying to remember the name of the show, and the blonde bombshell who starred in it. At first I thought I recalled it was Anne Baxter, but when I googled her pictures, I realized she was NOT the girl in that show (the title of which I also forgot in the oh-so-foggy past). Then, I thought, maybe it was Connie Francis, but she also turned out to be the wrong girl. Silly me, I was half right both times. It was Ann Francis, and the show was called Honey West. She's a private investigator, turns out, but I was very into James Bond, and she seemed like that kind of character, so I see why I thought she was a spy. It only ran for one season, 30 episodes. I was going to buy the entire season on DVD, but I found out the series was based on a series of books, so I thought I'd try the first book before I dove into the show (which would be a huge venture into nostalgia for me). I was very entertained. The book looks like soft-core porn, with an artists' rendering of the girl in question--naked, but turned sideways so none of the best parts are visible [damn!]--and it was obviously a bait and switch marketing ploy, as there's no actual sex in the book. It reads like Mickey Spillane. Not quite as well-crafted as Raymond Chandler. However, given it goes back to 1957, two years before I was born, it moved well, kept me interested and entertained, and that's all I really wanted out of it. I guess I'll buy the other 8 books now. Oh, and the DVD. After all, Ann Francis really was hot, even to my 6-year-old eyes.
February 17, 2023
The first adventure in the Honey West series. Honey takes over her father's detective agency after his murder. Her first case takes to the depths of Hollywood. An actor on hard times asks Honey for help. After he his killed, a writer from the actor's show comes to Honey to find the murderer. She goes undercover on the set of a TV show. Honey finds a den of intrigue. Can Honey find the murderer before she is a target? This was interesting. The plot was was very intricate. The suspects are connected by an complex web. Honey is beautiful and capable of handling anything that comes her way. Would not mind reading some more of these.
July 4, 2020
When former child star Herb Nelson is murdered, private detective Honey West is hired to find the killer. She gets hired for a part in a TV show where everybody is a suspect. Everybody is sure someone is out to kill them; and everybody is threatening to kill someone else. Then people start dying. It's up to Honey to sort things out and unmask the killer before everybody ends up dead.
Get whodunit with a lot of clues pointing to the killer. If you like detective stories, you'll like this one.
Get whodunit with a lot of clues pointing to the killer. If you like detective stories, you'll like this one.
September 15, 2021
Girlie pulp from the 1950s. Lots of titillating nudity - Honey is caught topless or nude several times - this would never have made it on film. But she handles herself well through all of the assaults and murder attempts on her life - martial arts, guns, knives. There is not much sex aside from nude scenes. There is no "Sam Bass" character in this book - Honey's partner - played by John Ericson in the TV series.
August 20, 2024
Aunque Honey West se hizo un hueco en la ficción criminal, su primera historia larga es un paso en falso. Gloria y Forest Fickling no consiguen el punto medio entre narración y personaje - necesarios en un debut -, cayendo en situaciones forzadas y ofreciendo giros poco convincentes. Sí, está el indudable mérito de presentar a una de las primeras investigadoras privadas del filón, pero su debut resultó apenas auspicioso.
July 11, 2022
Honey will crack the case...
After all the suspects and the murderer are dead... I'm not sure who the audience for this was. Honey gets naked or nearly so almost as many times as somebody gets bumped off, and with eight corpses littering up the place by the end, that's a lot, but despite the soft-core setup the details don't rise to even the mildly salacious.
After all the suspects and the murderer are dead... I'm not sure who the audience for this was. Honey gets naked or nearly so almost as many times as somebody gets bumped off, and with eight corpses littering up the place by the end, that's a lot, but despite the soft-core setup the details don't rise to even the mildly salacious.
July 15, 2021
Fun read
Holds up over time and yet it’s nostalgic. It has all the right punches for a Raymond Chandler novel and yet a feminist lead.
Holds up over time and yet it’s nostalgic. It has all the right punches for a Raymond Chandler novel and yet a feminist lead.
May 20, 2024
Pas d'enquête, female gaze, pas trop de logique, n'ai rien compris (?)
June 29, 2024
First of the Honey West crime novels.
September 28, 2024
Almost feels like a parody of a detective novel - except it isn’t.
May 22, 2025
Murder, murder, Murder
The entire case starts of with the murder of Herb Nelson, yet Herb was very much alive. Honey West follows the clues many left to mislead
The entire case starts of with the murder of Herb Nelson, yet Herb was very much alive. Honey West follows the clues many left to mislead
October 18, 2011
This Girl for Hire by G.G. Fickling
Reviewed by Andrew MacRae
The recent passing of actress Anne Francis caused me to pick up a copy of the second Honey West novel, written in 1957 by G.G. Fickling. (Pen name of husband and wife writing team Forest and Gloria Fickling.) This is a 2005 release by Overlook TP with an attractive cover suggestive of pulp novels of the fifties but not so lurid you can’t read it at your favorite coffee house without a paper bag over it or being subject to sidelong glances.
Although this book has reached the half-century mark it reads fresh and without jarring anachronisms. Indeed, Honey is ahead of her time early in the book when she complains of the difficulty of being a woman in a man’s occupation. (She’s a private eye, following in the footsteps of her slain father.) The book opens with a murder scene, the victim – Honey’s latest client. The pace is fast and the setting quickly jumps to Catalina Island where most of the action takes place. There are suspects, beautiful women (including Honey) who seem to lose their clothes at the drop of a bikini, more suspects, more murders, a strip poker game, more suspects and more murders.
The humor sprinkled throughout the story counters the high body count and complicated plot resulting in a lightweight, hard-boiled detective story, deftly told and making a good read.
Reviewed by Andrew MacRae
The recent passing of actress Anne Francis caused me to pick up a copy of the second Honey West novel, written in 1957 by G.G. Fickling. (Pen name of husband and wife writing team Forest and Gloria Fickling.) This is a 2005 release by Overlook TP with an attractive cover suggestive of pulp novels of the fifties but not so lurid you can’t read it at your favorite coffee house without a paper bag over it or being subject to sidelong glances.
Although this book has reached the half-century mark it reads fresh and without jarring anachronisms. Indeed, Honey is ahead of her time early in the book when she complains of the difficulty of being a woman in a man’s occupation. (She’s a private eye, following in the footsteps of her slain father.) The book opens with a murder scene, the victim – Honey’s latest client. The pace is fast and the setting quickly jumps to Catalina Island where most of the action takes place. There are suspects, beautiful women (including Honey) who seem to lose their clothes at the drop of a bikini, more suspects, more murders, a strip poker game, more suspects and more murders.
The humor sprinkled throughout the story counters the high body count and complicated plot resulting in a lightweight, hard-boiled detective story, deftly told and making a good read.
August 16, 2011
Never knew that this was a great series of novels, thought it was just a horrid TV show.
"Honey West is the nerviest, curviest P.I. in Los Angeles - or anywhere else for that matter. She's a cross between James Bond and The Avengers' Emma Peel - a girl detective with the sleuthmanship of Mike Hammer and the measurements of Marilyn Monroe, and This Girl for Hire is the first in a series of darkly funny and innuendo-laden crime novels originally published in the 1950s and 1960s. In this one, Honey finds herself playing strip poker with four murder suspects...and a deck that's as stacked as she is." Honey has her hands full with the corpse of a washed-up Hollywood entertainer, a battered beauty, and a poisoned pipsqueak - not to mention the guy who tries to get her to model a transparent bathing suit in his swimming pool "shaped like the body of a very large-bosomed woman." Fortunately, with her 38-22-36 measurements, taffy colored hair, big blue eyes, and baby-bottom complexion, Honey fits right in with the Hollywood types as she searches out the clues aboard a yacht christened Hell's Light. "Just bring a swimsuit and a toothbrush," says Sam Aces, the producer, but it's a good thing Honey's packed her .32, too.
"Honey West is the nerviest, curviest P.I. in Los Angeles - or anywhere else for that matter. She's a cross between James Bond and The Avengers' Emma Peel - a girl detective with the sleuthmanship of Mike Hammer and the measurements of Marilyn Monroe, and This Girl for Hire is the first in a series of darkly funny and innuendo-laden crime novels originally published in the 1950s and 1960s. In this one, Honey finds herself playing strip poker with four murder suspects...and a deck that's as stacked as she is." Honey has her hands full with the corpse of a washed-up Hollywood entertainer, a battered beauty, and a poisoned pipsqueak - not to mention the guy who tries to get her to model a transparent bathing suit in his swimming pool "shaped like the body of a very large-bosomed woman." Fortunately, with her 38-22-36 measurements, taffy colored hair, big blue eyes, and baby-bottom complexion, Honey fits right in with the Hollywood types as she searches out the clues aboard a yacht christened Hell's Light. "Just bring a swimsuit and a toothbrush," says Sam Aces, the producer, but it's a good thing Honey's packed her .32, too.
August 21, 2014
I watched Honey West recently on DVD and was curious how the books were. Pretty awful is what I found out. Incompetently written to the point where you just want it to end. Odd tangents throughout... In one section, Honey wants to find out if three young thugs are heroin users, and of course the best way to find this out is to challenge them to a game of strip poker (track marks under their long sleeves, get it?). Despite winning several hands, in which they remove their pants before their shirts, Honey loses because she's wearing a single-piece outfit. Further examples like this abound. Schizophrenic writing, with some really labored metaphors thrown in to further try one's patience. Suspension of logic and reality throughout. Every character is a suspect until he or she turns up dead at the end of the chapter. Authors (it's a husband and wife team) pretty much admit at the end that they don't know what happened (or why) in their own book! About the only good thing I can say is it's short.
February 16, 2016
"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.
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.
July 31, 2015
I always wanted to read a Honey West novel and I have recently been watching the old Honey West TV show on dvd that I enjoyed as a kid. I still like it and Anne Francis just nailed that role.
This story begins when one of Honey's clients, a once great but now has been actor, is found bludgeoned to death by his own Oscar statuette. The story quickly proceeds to a pleasure yacht owned by a Hollywood producer (complete with a bar pool) and 7 more murders before Honey solves the case. It is a fun, darkly humorous, spicy story. I don't think any Honey West novel is complete without her ending up in at least 4-5 instances where she is caught in various stages of undress. The story is okay at best and is a very quick page turner. No high brow stuff here. I don't think I will be in a hurry to read anymore Honey West novels for awhile though.
This story begins when one of Honey's clients, a once great but now has been actor, is found bludgeoned to death by his own Oscar statuette. The story quickly proceeds to a pleasure yacht owned by a Hollywood producer (complete with a bar pool) and 7 more murders before Honey solves the case. It is a fun, darkly humorous, spicy story. I don't think any Honey West novel is complete without her ending up in at least 4-5 instances where she is caught in various stages of undress. The story is okay at best and is a very quick page turner. No high brow stuff here. I don't think I will be in a hurry to read anymore Honey West novels for awhile though.
June 28, 2021
Not a bad 50's PI novel, that just happens to be about a female PI. It has way too much going on, too much movement, too many characters. A lot of stuff happens in this book, but little of it is focused. I mean, we don't really save anyone, it's all a little pointless in the way noir is meant to be. I would try another, but I hope it's more focused and coherent.
August 4, 2013
This was silly fun. This Girl For Hire is the first of the Honey West novels, about a female private eye who seems to have great difficulty keeping her clothes on as she unravels the mystery.
There's no outright sex, but a fair bit of nudity as she looks into who is trying to destroy a Hollywood production.
It was enjoyable, very light reading. I'll probably get to the rest of the series eventually.
There's no outright sex, but a fair bit of nudity as she looks into who is trying to destroy a Hollywood production.
It was enjoyable, very light reading. I'll probably get to the rest of the series eventually.
June 30, 2014
When I stumbled across the Honey West series I was intrigued. Never heard of it before but it was even a TV series. I've watched a couple episodes on Youtube and they were ok. But now that I've read the first book, I would say Aaron Spelling really messed Honey up.
This is an above average mystery taking place during the production of a weekly TV show where suspects keep showing up dead. Plenty twists and turns, certainly did not expect the ending. Plan to read others.
This is an above average mystery taking place during the production of a weekly TV show where suspects keep showing up dead. Plenty twists and turns, certainly did not expect the ending. Plan to read others.
August 7, 2011
I've read my share of pulp fiction so I thought that I would enjoy this more than I did. The dialogue and one-liners were mildly amusing, but the plot twists were confusing. I gave up 3/4 of the way through the book before finding out who the culprit was. I am still interested in checking out the TV show that was based on it, though.
July 7, 2014
One of our first finds at Mainely Murder this year. I thoroughly enjoyed this pulp story about the "nerviest, curviest private detective in LA!" despite the numerous contrived scenarios for Honey to lose her clothing in course of her investigations. Looking forward to reading more!
April 25, 2013
I read this series when I was a youth. Since the book was written in the 50s, it was funny to see what was modern then and how things have changed.
Also, if you take into the time period when this book was written, it's very good. All in all, a fun book to read.
Also, if you take into the time period when this book was written, it's very good. All in all, a fun book to read.
May 1, 2014
Honey is a very interesting character and the story definitely captures both Hollywood and the time period in which it is set. However I could only give it four stars due to the large amount of copy editing errors in the Kindle edition.
August 13, 2011
Decent pulp detective story, but lacking any extra spark. Also, I am not sure I've ever seen a book with this many typos.
November 13, 2015
Was a typical 50s detective story which is good given it was written then. I enjoyed it and look forward to the rest of the series and then comparing it with the tv series.
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