George Baxt: Topsy and Evil (USA 1987)

From the Publisher:
Ostensibly, this mystery is about the murder of the mysterious tycoon Guru Raskalnikov, who is mysteriously bludgeoned to death with the classic blunt instrument. Exactly what that classic blunt instrument was is another part of the mystery.

Certainly, the novel contains the typical Baxtian cast of bizarre characters. These include Topsy Alcott, doyenne of the Tara Club, and her daughters Mag, Jo, Amy, and Beth; Fauna and Flora fleur, Madeline Carter (who through the aid of plastic surgery now resembles the young Shirley Temple) and the Moluin Twins, all from SWING LOW, SWEET HARRIET, the wily Winnie Ruth Jodo, who stages a jailbreak to help her friends; Archimedes Zoltan, who controls most of the world's wealth; Ocelot, the fabulous feline entertainer of the panther circuit, and Satan Stagg, the hip young black detective whose job it is to find the murderer.

So what's the problem? Pharoah Love is missing. The real mystery is not just where is Pharoah Love but how can TOPSY AND EVIL be the third novel in the Pharoah Love trilogy without him? Read on. You'll see.

George Baxt: Topsy and Evil. International Polygonics Ltd., ISBN: 0930330668 (October, 1987), 224 p., $4.95.

George Baxt: Topsy and Evil (USA 1969)

From the Publisher:
It could be the world's only practicing 90-year-old Don Juan and his latest flame, a dimpled ex-movie queen with bitchy, grown-up twin sons... It could be Topsy Alcott, legendary proprietress of the oh-so-in Tara Club... or Topsy's murderous seductive daughters, Meg, Beth, Jo and Amy... Or it could very well be the newest, coolest, deadliest singing sensation of the season, Miss Ocelot.... Whoever's absconded with Pharoah Love, the campiest cop in Pop City, they're up to their made-up necks in simply shocking scandal and fabulously brutal murder ( -- but listen, darling, what a way to go!)

TOPSY AND EVIL is the kind of book that would make Myra Breckinridge blanch -- from sheer envy. "Wild, incredible, great... for those who like them swinging" -- Providence Journal

George Baxt: Topsy and Evil. New York: New American Library, 1969, Signet Mystery P3767, 240 p., ¢60.