“Peter Duncan” was a pseudonym for Butler Markham Atkinson Jr (1918-1994), a beloved humorist for the Louisville Times, Atlanta Journal, The New Yorker, Colliers, and The Saturday Evening Post. He also wrote What Dr. Spock Didn’t Tell Us, The Telltale Tart, and several screenplays.
Four full novels of murder, sex, passion, betrayal and journalism... as reporters delve into the deepest, darkest reaches of noir to get their stories.
CHASING JACK by Parnell Hall - TELLTALE TART by Peter Duncan - GO DOWN HARD by Craig Faustus Buck - KING COBRA by Ward Greene
Reporter Laura Ames and magazine photographer Pete Farrell fly out to rich novelist John Hope Hamilton's private, tropical island to interview him. But as soon as they arrive, they discover that the novelist's secretary Mary Belle has died under mysterious circumstances and that Cuba, his voluptuous new secretary, is doing a lot more for him than taking dictation. The real story here could be murder... and the killing might not be over.
"There are a lot of sexual hijinks of the 1950s Playboy variety, including a couple of pretty funny sex scenes. Duncan's touch is light, and his style is smooth. This one's fun to read." Bill Crider
"Self-deprecating and making humorous hay out of his sexual frustration, Pete is a fun narrator and it’s his voice that makes The Telltale Tart a comic romp." Strange Type
Greenhill Police chief Buck Peters, the deacon of his local church, investigates the murder the "town tramp." The prime suspect is Kip Belton, the police commissioner, whose alibi is that he was with his wife, Lacey, at the time of the killing. There's just one problem with that story. Buck knows it's a lie...because when the murder happened, the Chief was having sex with Lacey in Belton's backyard. And that's only the beginning of Buck's problems.