In the third installment featuring the nerviest and curviest private eye in the business, Honey West falls victim to a murderous case of mistaken identity; in the fictional world of Honey W, all busty well built blondes look alike...so it seems.
The opening stanza is the most hardboiled the series has to offer and reads like a scene ripped from a Mike Hammer novel. However, the comparisons with Hammer soon dissipate and Honey resumes doing Honey things...fighting crime with her lips, hips, and...you know...
A staple of the series; the convoluted plot, rears its ugly head yet again. Cartoon dialogue and flimsy storytelling are commonplace (and expected in this series) yet at some point it becomes hard to enjoy the popcorn pulp nature of these books, and that's exactly what happens in the later stages here, when, once again, an unbelievable rationale is thrust in the face of the reader and a culprit out of left field is revealed as a kidnapper...
Whilst the weakest of the first three books, GIRL ON THE LOOSE does have some memorable moments; opening stanza aside, there's a scene of Honey and her reporter friend pulling the wool over a crime boss's eyes at a booze fueled pool party which reads as though it was written for film - butter to what is otherwise a somewhat stale bun.
GIRL ON THE LOOSE is one of three books collected in the HONEY WEST FILES VOL 1, published 2012 by Moonstone Press (there, unfortunately, doesn't appear to be a volume 2). It is the third book in the series.
No comments:
Post a Comment