The Honey West Novels

[Wifetheif]

Because I usually can't abide modern literature, I've been reading the "Honey West" novels by a husband and wife couple who wrote under the pseudonym, G. G. Flicking. The first book was published in 1957. Honey West is a female L.A. private eye, much rarer then, and still uncommon today. Honey is stacked, blonde, model gorgeous, and has a habit of losing her clothes. Conceived as a female Mickey Spillane, she's all action and skilled in martial arts, and a crack shot. Because of the times when the novels were written, they tended to pull their punches; Honey ends up nude, or topless, or whatever, but there is literally NO description of her anatomy aside from generalities. There was a T.V. series based on the character staring Anne Francis, who is certainly adorable, but the literary version had much much larger breasts.
It strikes me that various writers here could have a field day "updating" these stories even if they maintained the milieu of the late 50s to the mid-60s.
Some of the incidents in the novels are just begging for an update. In one, her investigation takes her to Tijuana, Mexico, investigating a bordello. The bad guys know she is coming. She ends up drugged, disarmed, stripped down, and injected with a sexual stimulant. She makes it out of that one by the skin of her teeth. The novels are all told in the first person. She has an on-again and off-again romance with Mark Stone a detective from the L.A.P.D. who wants her to quit the P.I, business and become his wife. Honey won't quit, however, until she finds out who killed her P.I. father. I find the novels oddly refreshing. The Flicking's had a problem with endings. One concludes with luck and Honey being essentially psychic. Another has a female impersonator prancing around and NOBODY, (until the last moment) has even an inkling that it's a guy in drag! Another case begins when she loses her bikini at the beach and the surfer dude who comes to her rescue ends up dead. On another occasion, she has to impersonate a burlesque striptease artist. It seems like the writers here could supply a bit of fanfiction or original tales featuring Honey clones. Interesting idea, no?

 

[NewOldGuy77]

Sounds like a good foundation to work from!

 

[CuttingEdge]

Because I usually can't abide modern literature, I've been reading the "Honey West" novels by a husband and wife couple who wrote under the pseudonym, G. G. Flicking. The first book was published in 1957. Honey West is a female L.A. private eye, much rarer then, and still uncommon today. Honey is stacked, blonde, model gorgeous, and has a habit of losing her clothes. Conceived as a female Mickey Spillane, she's all action and skilled in martial arts, and a crack shot. Because of the times when the novels were written, they tended to pull their punches; Honey ends up nude, or topless, or whatever, but there is literally NO description of her anatomy aside from generalities. There was a T.V. series based on the character staring Anne Francis, who is certainly adorable, but the literary version had much much larger breasts.
It strikes me that various writers here could have a field day "updating" these stories even if they maintained the milieu of the late 50s to the mid-60s.
Some of the incidents in the novels are just begging for an update. In one, her investigation takes her to Tijuana, Mexico, investigating a bordello. The bad guys know she is coming. She ends up drugged, disarmed, stripped down, and injected with a sexual stimulant. She makes it out of that one by the skin of her teeth. The novels are all told in the first person. She has an on-again and off-again romance with Mark Stone a detective from the L.A.P.D. who wants her to quit the P.I, business and become his wife. Honey won't quit, however, until she finds out who killed her P.I. father. I find the novels oddly refreshing. The Flicking's had a problem with endings. One concludes with luck and Honey being essentially psychic. Another has a female impersonator prancing around and NOBODY, (until the last moment) has even an inkling that it's a guy in drag! Another case begins when she loses her bikini at the beach and the surfer dude who comes to her rescue ends up dead. On another occasion, she has to impersonate a burlesque striptease artist. It seems like the writers here could supply a bit of fanfiction or original tales featuring Honey clones. Interesting idea, no?

Very much so.

I love the 1930's and have my house set up to look very much like that era. I also wrote a lot of erotic literature based on that time known as "Pulp Erotica".

Basically, from the 1920's to 1950's, it was the pornography of the day, like nude magazines in the 70's and 80's, and now online porn. In short, it was what our great-grandfathers and grandfathers had for porn. It got its name "pulp" from the cheap paper produced to print the books, cheap "pulp" papers that needed very little finishing at the papermills and thus was cheap.

It is not very popular because pulp erotica is not... well... politically correct. It was an era of huge change, and crime unto itself is dark itself.

Just do a google image search for "Pulp Covers" and a writer could get plenty of ideas.

 

[Carnevil9]

Excellent idea for a story series.