Honey in the Flesh

What happens when Miss California from the Miss Twentieth Century Pageant is found dead in Long Beach harbor? You get someone who is as sexy, beautiful, and as smart as Honey West to investigate the mysterious murder. But the tricky part for Honey is what to do when the real Miss California shows up for the Pageant.

The Honey West character was created by Gloria and Forrest E. "Skip" Fickling under the pseudonym "G.G. Fickling" in the late 1950s. The G.G. represented the initials of his wife, Gloria Gautraud, whom he married in 1949 with initials being used so the sex of the author would remain vague. Though Gloria said that most of the writing was done by Forrest, Forrest said Gloria's ideas were used to make a plausible female character with Gloria also providing Honey's dress sense; Gloria having 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."