Go, Honeylou: A Pete Schofield Caper

Pete Schofield #5

by Thomas B. Dewey

"Thomas B. Dewey is one of detective fiction's severely underrated writers!" -- Bill PronziniPete thought he had it made. A cool half-grand, plus expenses, just to deliver Uncle Pierce Bonwell's bright-eyed and burstin' niece, Honeylou, to her Aunt Cindy -- in one piece. But Pete learned the hard way that Uncle Pierce wasn't giving money away. The cost of kidnapping and murder runs pretty high!

152 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 24, 2015

About the author

Thomas Blanchard Dewey was an American author of hardboiled crime novels. He created two series of novels: the first one features Mac, a private investigator from Chicago, the second features Pete Schofield.

Reviews

[Edwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Married couple Pete and Jeannie Schofield are a lot like Nick and Nora Charles, except Pete is more hard-boiled and Jeannie is a lot more frisky. The novel is a screwball detective romp with Pete getting beat up, and the women undressing for various reasons as they attempt to unravel a caper that includes murder, kidnapping, prostitution, a disputed inheritance, and $250,00 in hidden cash. Lots of playful banter between the married couple, and a solid plot that takes place during an assignment to transport a young Texas beauty from Los Angeles to San Francisco, with stops in Bakersfield and other locations. Fun stuff in the tradition of the Robert Leslie Bellem and Richard S. Prather stories.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although Thomas B. Dewey is known as a hardboiled writer for his Mac series, his Peter Schofield series about a married San Fernando Valley PI and his amorous wife Jeannie, has a much more light-hearted feel to it. Of course, this series is filled to the brim with hoods, guns, car chases, and murders, but it is a fun series, perhaps designed to appeal to a wider audience.
Go, Honeylou, features a gigantic blonde preacher’s niece from Texas where everything is just bigger and perhaps better. Schofield is tasked by the preacher (with the wide Texas drawl) with taking Honeylou up to San Francisco to stay with Aunt Cindy, who runs a house for wayward girls, and which later turns out to be a house for a certain kind of girl whose actions might just make Honeylou blush. Honeylou has a giant appetite, is a bit blonde between the ears, and likes to do “roadwork.” When Jeannie gets an eyeful of who is sitting in Schofield’s car, she decides to accompany them on their journey northward. Although Jeannie doesn’t seem to have the instincts of a PI, she does provide some lighter moments.

It is remarkable how much of a journey it was in the early sixties from Los Angeles to San Francisco, including the fact that Schofield is forced to take what was known as the Ridge Route over the Tehachapis, making Bakersfield the first night’s stop. This was apparently before the 5 Freeway was blasted through the mountains.

Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a story if taking Honeylou to Aunt Cindy’s was as simple as all that. Throw in a few scattered FBI agents, a kidnapping or two, a missing fortune, a giant-sized hood, a crooked and disbarred lawyer, and a few of Aunt Cindy’s girls after her buried fortune, and all of a sudden, you have a fast-paced caper.

It is a fun, fast read, even for a paperback original. Like most of the tales in this series, the plot sometimes feels a bit off-kilter with loose ends that don’t all fit that well together, but this is book that is hard to put down.

[Frank McGirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a lot of pulp, I kind of got tired of it by the end, rather than amped up by the climax.

That being said, it was a easy read that had a consistent light tone, and its overt "sexiness" was neither overbearing nor cringy. I wouldn't put this in the "hard-boiled" camp...felt like an episode of Magnum PI, which was a fine enough change from what I had been reading at night.

[Ccharla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good, fast-reading pulp action mystery.