Honey West
Honey West is a fictional character created by the husband and wife writing team Gloria and Forest Fickling under the pseudonym "G.G. Fickling", and appearing in eleven mystery novels by the duo.
The character is notable as being one of the first female private detectives in popular fiction. She first appeared in the 1957 book This Girl for Hire and would appear in nine novels before being retired in the mid-1960s, with two comeback novels in 1971.
Creation
The Honey West character was created by Gloria and Forrest E. "Skip" Fickling under the pseudonym "G.G. Fickling" in the late 1950s.Forrest Fickling had been a United States Army Air Forces air gunner during World War II; he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve after the war, and as a member of that service was called back to active duty during the Korean War. The G.G. represented the initials of his wife, Gloria Gautraud, whom he had married in 1949. The initials were used so the sex of the author would remain vague.
Though Gloria said that most of the writing was done by Forrest, he said her ideas helped make the female character more plausible and gave her a good dress sense. Gloria had been an assistant fashion editor at Look magazine and a fashion writer for Women's Wear Daily.
Forrest told the Los Angeles Times, "I first thought of Marilyn Monroe, and then I thought of Mike Hammer and decided to put the two together... We thought the most used name for someone you really like is Honey. And she lives in the West, so there was her name."
Spin-off
Private investigator Erik March made his debut in This Girl for Hire. He also has a major role in last novel Stiff as a Broad. Gloria and Forest wrote three Erik March novels in the sixties.Prose
Novels
- This Girl for Hire
- A Gun for Honey
- Girl on the Loose
- Honey in the Flesh
- Girl on the Prowl
- Kiss for a Killer
- Dig a Dead Doll
- Blood and Honey
- Bombshell
- Honey on her Tail
- ''Stiff as a Broad''
Short story
- "The Red Hairing" in ''Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine''
Spin-off novels Erik March
- Naughty But Dead
- The Case of the Radioactive Redhead
- ''The Crazy Mixed-up Nude''
Authorized works by other writers
- A Girl and Her Cata novel by Win Scott Eckert and Matthew Baugh
- "Seer Sucker" by Will Murray, a short story in Honey West Commemorative Edition
- Honey West: Honey for Hire a collection of short stories by Joe Gentile, Fernando Ferreiro, Ed Gorman, Mel Odom, Will Murray, Trina Robbins, C. J. Henderson, Mike Black, ed. Nancy Holder