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The Irrepressible Peccadillo
The wayward beauty who comes back to her old hometown to titillate her ex-boyfriend (now a married man and a lawyer) and to blackmail her ex-husband is ripe bait for murder. And murder is just what she gets. Suspicion falls heaviest on the old flame and not on the discarded husband-for very obvious reasons. At the time of the lady's demise, the lawyer was out of his legal mind, befuddled by a number of those potent concoctions known around the cocktail table as gimlets. In the second place, he was squarely on the scene of the crime.... Unfortunately, the police find his explanation incredible. Fortunately, his wife doesn't. And while her husband is carted off to durance vile, she sets out to pursue an investigation of her own. "The Irrepressible Peccadillo" is written with all Fletcher Flora's customary verve and sophistication. To the gripping story of a man on the spot, he adds plenty of wit, sex, and humor -- and comes up with a puzzle that will keep the reader guessing to the last page.
- GenresMystery
132 pages, Paperback
Published May 21, 2015
About the author
Fletcher Flora
119 books10 followersFletcher Flora was born in Parsons, Kansas in 1914. Flora began writing soon after returning from World War II. His crime and mystery short stories and novels were published in magazines like Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mr., Cosmopolitan, and in Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery anthologies. He received the Cock Robin Mystery Award for his first hard cover novel, Killing Cousins in 1960. Flora wrote over 150 short stories and 13 novels during his writing career. Three of his works are published under the house name, Ellery Queen. Timothy Harrison was also a pseudonym for his work, Hot Summer.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 4, 2024
The Irrepressible Peccadillo was originally published in hardcover in 1962 by McMilllan and later republished as an ebook and paperback by Wildside Press in 2015. This reviewer has not found any sign of the 1962 cover. Given the book title and the lack of stunning cover art, one can imagine it was not a huge commercial success, but Flora’s work rarely was. Nevertheless, it is not a bad story and is deserving of a better title and a sexier cover.
This could be described as a lighthearted mystery. At its center is a married couple, Gideon Jones, attorney-at-law, and his wife, and Sid (Sydnie) who cavorts in short shorts and knows all the small-town gossip. They are inherently likable people even if Gideon is tempted by a piece of forbidden fruit. In fact, they are such a wonderful couple that they might remind you of Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore circa 1962 in the Dick Van Dyke Show.
Gideon has a redheaded secretary Millie, who is quite distracting when she takes dictation with her legs crossed, but Millie is not the temptation that Gideon has trouble resisting. That temptress is his long-lost but now suddenly returned Beth Webb now Beth Thatcher who grew up to be the most beautiful girl in town and who Gideon had thought he would marry, that is, until she saw the size of Wilson Thatcher’s bank account- although in her ficklenes she later divorced Thatcher.
Having a few gimlets in the Kiowa room, Gideon overhears a remarkably husky voice that you don’t forget even after seven years of silence. Though married now, Gideon thinks sadly how it had been seven lean years of famine since he had touched Beth’s knee. Beth tells him they had beautiful memories but it had been “necessary” for her to marry Thatcher. After all, she explains mercenarily, several millions of dollars is a serious temptation and a girl can scarcely be blamed for yielding to it.
The action – if there is really much action here – really begins when Sid goes to visit a girlfriend after dinner and, after a few more potent gimlets, Gideon gets a call from his heartthrob Beth who urges him – hearing he is alone – come meet her in Dreamer’s Park and say goodbye for old time’s sake. Goofy Gideon, sloshing around after countless gimlets, says sure, honey, and sets out to the park where they can meet under cover of night and well, whatever happens in Dreamer’s Park stays there, particularly Beth, who will never meet anyone in any park ever again.
Like every fool in a crime novel who wakes up with a corpse in bed with them, wondering how he got there and how he will get out of it, Gideon, knowing how suspicious it looks that he the resentful ex-lover still had a bone a pick with Beth, does not call the police. Rather, he flees the scene and hopes no one saw him. But rather than a story of a guy wracked with guilt or forever on the run, we get a story of a decent middle-class guy who, dope that he is, tells his wife what went down. Then, we get the small-town tale of the local police office making inquiries and Sid, strangely enough, plotting to cover up Gideon’s involvement, never once suspecting that he might be the guilty party.
Both Gideon and Sid are really too lighthearted to take any of it too seriously even when Gideon is arrested as the prime suspect and Sid prances around town, poking around to absolve her dear husband.
It is a pleasant mystery that does leave the reader guessing until the big reveal at the end.
This could be described as a lighthearted mystery. At its center is a married couple, Gideon Jones, attorney-at-law, and his wife, and Sid (Sydnie) who cavorts in short shorts and knows all the small-town gossip. They are inherently likable people even if Gideon is tempted by a piece of forbidden fruit. In fact, they are such a wonderful couple that they might remind you of Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore circa 1962 in the Dick Van Dyke Show.
Gideon has a redheaded secretary Millie, who is quite distracting when she takes dictation with her legs crossed, but Millie is not the temptation that Gideon has trouble resisting. That temptress is his long-lost but now suddenly returned Beth Webb now Beth Thatcher who grew up to be the most beautiful girl in town and who Gideon had thought he would marry, that is, until she saw the size of Wilson Thatcher’s bank account- although in her ficklenes she later divorced Thatcher.
Having a few gimlets in the Kiowa room, Gideon overhears a remarkably husky voice that you don’t forget even after seven years of silence. Though married now, Gideon thinks sadly how it had been seven lean years of famine since he had touched Beth’s knee. Beth tells him they had beautiful memories but it had been “necessary” for her to marry Thatcher. After all, she explains mercenarily, several millions of dollars is a serious temptation and a girl can scarcely be blamed for yielding to it.
The action – if there is really much action here – really begins when Sid goes to visit a girlfriend after dinner and, after a few more potent gimlets, Gideon gets a call from his heartthrob Beth who urges him – hearing he is alone – come meet her in Dreamer’s Park and say goodbye for old time’s sake. Goofy Gideon, sloshing around after countless gimlets, says sure, honey, and sets out to the park where they can meet under cover of night and well, whatever happens in Dreamer’s Park stays there, particularly Beth, who will never meet anyone in any park ever again.
Like every fool in a crime novel who wakes up with a corpse in bed with them, wondering how he got there and how he will get out of it, Gideon, knowing how suspicious it looks that he the resentful ex-lover still had a bone a pick with Beth, does not call the police. Rather, he flees the scene and hopes no one saw him. But rather than a story of a guy wracked with guilt or forever on the run, we get a story of a decent middle-class guy who, dope that he is, tells his wife what went down. Then, we get the small-town tale of the local police office making inquiries and Sid, strangely enough, plotting to cover up Gideon’s involvement, never once suspecting that he might be the guilty party.
Both Gideon and Sid are really too lighthearted to take any of it too seriously even when Gideon is arrested as the prime suspect and Sid prances around town, poking around to absolve her dear husband.
It is a pleasant mystery that does leave the reader guessing until the big reveal at the end.
December 17, 2020
Pulp, very dated. The main characters all drink substantially with no indication that they are impaired. Also smoking is a given. The women all wear dresses and money only comes from their husbands, not jobs.
(The GR page says this was published in 2015, but the author's bio says he died in 1968 so either this was discovered for posthumous publication or it is a reissue with no listing for the original.)
(The GR page says this was published in 2015, but the author's bio says he died in 1968 so either this was discovered for posthumous publication or it is a reissue with no listing for the original.)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews