Leprechauns rob banks – true or false
18 Mar
Sometimes you say things on Twitter without thinking. Well mostly you do that — let’s be honest. Today I read a news story on the BBC about two bank robbers, one of them dressed as a leprechaun, getting shot dead by cops in Tennessee. ‘Put that in a book and no one wd believe you,’ I wrote.
I then remembered. There’s one truly great and much-ignored crime classic that does have leprechauns in it. A wonderful book, one that’s both entertaining and richly imagined too. If you haven’t read it, or tried the work of the author, you ought to honest.
It’s The Deadly Percheron by John Franklin Bardin.
Here is Allan Guthrie’s excellent summation of the opening from a review on Amazon…
Dr George Matthews, a psychiatrist, encounters a patient who claims he is paid by a leprechaun to wear a flower in his hair. Another, he claims, pays him to whistle at Carnegie Hall during performances. A third pays him to give quarters away. Jacob Blunt wants Dr Matthews to confirm that he’s mad. Dr Matthews is curious, so he accompanies his patient to a rendezvous with one of the leprechauns. His name is Eustace and he isn’t at all pleased to see the doctor.
Magical stuff. Do try it. Oh, and best ignore that tweet.
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