June 1967
HONEY
WEST & T. H. E. CAT: A GIRL AND HER CAT
P.I.
Honey West is visited by Dr. Isabella Fang, who smokes Red Apple
Cigarettes. Dr. Fang hires Honey to recover an alleged rubella
vaccine she developed, as well as a pocket watch, which have both
been stolen by Dr. Karl Stipier. Accepting the case, Honey asks
another Los Angeles-based detective named Scott to handle her other
cases in the meantime, and travels to San Francisco. Honey’s old
flame Johnny Doom, now a CIA agent, comes to her aid alongside two
men she dubs Gray Suit and Blondie. Honey and Johnny book a room at
the St. Francis hotel, although Gray Suit recommended the Hotel
Carlton. Johnny reveals to Honey the “vaccine” is actually a
biological weapon of a class the government has codenamed “Satan
Bugs,” and Gray Suit and Blondie are members of a worldwide
organization that is in regular conflict with a criminal organization
and “secret nation” that has tried to form an alliance with an
Eastern secret society known as the Si-Fan. Johnny calls another
government agent, Derek, for information about Stipier and Fang.
Derek says there are fearful whispers about Fang at The Dragon of the
Black Pool in Chinatown. Honey tells Johnny she thinks she recognized
Derek’s voice from a couple recent cases. Honey and Johnny are
abducted by Dr. Fang’s grandfather, Dr. Shan Ming Fu, the leader of
the Si-Fan. One of Shan Ming Fu’s minions is a sumo wrestler. At
the elder doctor’s recommendation, Honey enlists the help of Thomas
Hewitt Edward Cat, former circus aerialist and cat burglar turned
owner of the Casa
del Gato nightclub
and bodyguard, to retrieve the biological agent. Honey came to Cat’s
aid in Las Vegas a year ago. Besides Cat, Honey also meets his friend
Pepe Cordoza and Captain McAllister of the SFPD. Stipier bought the
mansion Silverstone West, which was built in the 1940s by an
eccentric multi-millionaire named Tipton, from an employee of the
latter’s named Michael Anthony. A man with a bowler hat and an odd
rifle attacks Honey and Cat as they flee Stipier’s mansion with the
Satan Bug and the watch. Honey’s great-grandfather, James, was a
major during the Civil War, and later was involved in government
work. Cat did some bodyguard work for a scientist named Dr. Quest
last year; Quest’s wife was killed and his son was in danger. An
agent for Intelligence One now guards the Quests. Honey was
instructed in judo by a man named Macreedy, while Cat was taught how
to tie knots by a young escape artist named Tony Blake. Honey
arranges for a friend named Ben, who works at County General
Hospital, to make a capsule that can pass for the real Satan Bug in
order to deceive Shan Ming Fu. Blondie remarks Mr. Baldwin, the head
of his organization’s primary enemy’s San Francisco offices, will
be disappointed by Shan Ming Fu’s continued refusal to form an
alliance with them.
Novel
by Honey West, edited by Win Scott Eckert and Matthew Baugh,
Moonstone Books, 2014. Honey West is a private investigator featured
in novels by “G. G. Fickling” (Gloria and Forest Fickling). In
the novel Bombshell,
set in 1964, Honey and bounty hunter Johnny Doom are offered
employment in the CIA. Honey evidently turned down the offer, as she
had several adventures as a P.I. between Bombshell
and
A
Girl and Her Cat,
which were depicted in Fickling’s novels, the 1965-1966 Honey
West TV
series, and several stories and comics published by Moonstone. In the
novel Honey
on Her Tail,
which takes place three years after this book, Honey finally becomes
a CIA agent. Dr. Isabella Fang is the daughter of the villainous Dr.
Fang, who had his own radio series in the 1930s. Isabella encountered
the Green Hornet and Kato in 1964 during the events of Eckert’s
story “Fang and Sting” (The
Green Hornet Chronicles,
Joe Gentile and Win Scott Eckert, eds., Moonstone Books, 2010). In
1974, Isabella and her grandfather would once again encounter the
Hornet in Eckert’s “Progress” (The
Green Hornet: Still at Large,
Joe Gentile, Win Scott Eckert, and Matthew Baugh, eds., Moonstone
Books, 2012). Dr. Shan Ming Fu is better known by the nom de guerre
Dr.
Fu Manchu; Dennis E. Power revealed the Devil Doctor’s birth name
in his article “The Devil Doctor: The Early History of Fu Manchu”
(found on the website The
Wold Newton Universe: A Secret History).
The Si-Fan is the secret society run by Fu Manchu in the novels by
Sax Rohmer. Red Apple Cigarettes have appeared in a number of films,
including Pulp
Fiction,
From
Dusk Till Dawn,
and Romy
and Michele’s High School Reunion,
as well as several other stories by Eckert. The watch is a working
(albeit inferior) replica of one of the distorters used by the
warring Capellean and Eridanean races in Philip José Farmer’s The
Other Log of Phileas Fogg.
Dr. Karl Stipier is meant to be Baron von Hessel from Farmer’s Doc
Savage novel Escape
from Loki;
von Hessel also appears under a variety of aliases in other stories
by Eckert. The other detective in Los Angeles is Richard S. Prather’s
Shell Scott. Gray Suit and Blondie are Napoleon Solo and Illya
Kuryakin from the television series The
Man from U.N.C.L.E. U.N.C.L.E.’s
greatest foe is the criminal organization THRUSH, which attempted to
form an alliance with the Si-Fan in David McDaniel’s novel The
Rainbow Affair.
The man in the bowler hat is an unnamed THRUSH agent seen in The
Rainbow Affair.
Ward Baldwin is in charge of THRUSH’s San Francisco offices in
McDaniel’s novels. The Hotel Carlton is the home of Paladin in the
television Western Have
Gun–Will Travel.
The term “Satan Bug” is derived from Alistair MacLean’s novel
The
Satan Bug.
Derek is spy Derek Flint from the movies Our
Man Flint and
In
Like Flint.
Honey encountered Flint during the events of the Moonstone comic
Honey
West, Captain Action, and Flint: Danger-a-Go-Go.
The Dragon of the Black Pool restaurant in San Francisco’s
Chinatown is from the movie Big
Trouble in Little China.
The sumo wrestler, Tak, will later battle Fu Manchu’s rebellious
son Shang-Chi, as seen in the comic book Special
Marvel Edition.
Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat, Pepe Cordoza, and Captain McAllister are
from the 1966–1967
television series T.
H. E. Cat.
Honey’s 1966 encounter with Cat was recounted in the two-issue
Moonstone comic Honey
West and T. H. E. Cat: Death in the Desert.
John Beresford Tipton and Michael Anthony are from the television
series The
Millionaire.
Tipton’s estate in that series was called Silverstone; Silverstone
West is Eckert and Baugh’s invention. Honey’s great-grandfather
is Secret Service agent James West from the classic television series
The
Wild Wild West.
Dr. Benton Quest, his son Jonny, and Intelligence One are from the
animated TV series Jonny
Quest.
Cat’s replacement as the Quests’ bodyguard is Roger “Race”
Bannon. Honey’s judo teacher is John J. Macreedy from the film Bad
Day at Black Rock.
Tony Blake is the title character of the television series The
Magician.
Ben Casey, a doctor at County General Hospital, is from the
television series that bears his name. The
Ben Casey episode
“For This Relief, Much Thanks” began a two-part story that ended
with “Solo for B-Flat Clarinet,” the first episode of Breaking
Point,
bringing in that medical drama as well.
