Hard Case Crime Series by Lester Dent
Hard Case Crime #60
Honey in His Mouth hcc-60
Lester Dent
What would you do if you were a DEAD RINGER for a DICTATOR?
If you were small-time grifter Walter Harsh, recovering in a hospital with a broken arm, you’d listen to a proposition that could net you a cool $50,000 for impersonating the South American strongman you resemble. You’d pay attention when the dictator’s sultry mistress started putting the moves on you. And in the dead of night, when no one was watching, you might just hatch a plot to get it all for yourself: the money, the girl, and the stash of stolen loot she’s conspiring to spirit out of the country…
From Publishers Weekly Smalltime con artist Walter Harsh is lured into international intrigue in this old-fashioned pulp thriller from the creator of Doc Savage. A mysterious man known only as Mr. Brother recruits Harsh and his girlfriend and sidekick, Vera Sue Crosby, into a complex scam involving a South American strongman's beautiful former mistress, a corrupt physician and an Arab financial mastermind. As the plotters await political chaos and the Peron-like dictator's flight from his country, Harsh prepares to impersonate the dictator as part of an embezzlement plot beyond his wildest imaginings. Originally written in 1956, Dent's story suffers from both an unlikely identical strangers premise and the casual sexism of its era, but the elaborate twists of the caper effectively draw the reader into a hard-boiled, violent and authentically gritty tale in the best pulp style.
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