Blow Hot, Blow Cold

low Hot, Blow Cold (June 1964)

There was an epidemic of death in the town. Lila Connor, neighborhood flirt and sex goddess, lay dead in her home, victim of an ill-placed letter opener. Larry Connor, successful accountant and distraught husband, lay dead in his office, slain by the giant Mickey Finn. And at Shady Acres, Nancy Howell was crazy wondering who killed Lila and Larry. Was a killer even now hidden in Shady Acres, waiting for a chance to slay again...?

Recipe for a backyard cookout: one guest skewered by another

"Lila was shameless," Mae Walters said to Lieutenant Masters. "I'm surprised someone didn't kill her long ago."
"Now, Mae," Stanley Walters said, "you needn't make Lila out to be worse than she was."
"Yes, darling," said Vera Richmond, "you mustn't exaggerate. All Lila did was to give Stanley a meaningless kiss. As a matter of fact, Lieutenant, it started us all off kissing one another immediately."
"Did anything else happen I ought to know about?" asked Masters.
"Nothing at all, Lieutenant," Vera said. "It was just a little backyard cookout. We didn't ask any gangsters."
"Apparently," Masters said, "you asked a murderer."

Blow Hot Blow Cold - cover pocket book edition, Pocket Book N° 45007, June 1964 (1st)

Blow Hot Blow Cold - cover pocket book edition, Signet 451-Q5984, August 1974

The Four Johns/Blow Hot Blow Cold - cover pocket book edition, Signet Double Mystery, 451 E8221, August 1 1978

Blow Hot, Blow Cold - cover audiobook Blackstone Audio, Inc., read by Rebecca Mitchell, November 1. 2014

Blow Hot, Blow Cold - cover MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, August 11, 2015

With cast of characters at the beginning. In his second try behind the Queen byline, according to Nevins, Fletcher Flora turned out the finest and most genuinely Queen-like in the first cycle of fifteen ghosted paperbacks.

According to Anthony Boucher’s glowing review (January 24, 1965) “even has some similarity to hardcover Queen,” also “offers character sketches of four middle-class married couples in suburban Kansas City that are handled just as skillfully as the murder plot. When the bitchy nymphomaniac on the block and her long-suffering husband both die on the same sweltering summer night, Lt. Gus Masters rejects the obvious theory of man-kills-wife-and-then-self and exposes a complex manipulation of evidence with iron logic worthy of the one and only Ellery. Here is a flavorful treat for fans of mainstream fiction and whodunit addicts alike.”

Blow Hot, Blow Cold Translations:
Czech: Horké i Studené
Dutch/Flemish: Het gebeurde op een zomerdag
French: Chauds les glaçons
German: Die Gartenparty
Italian: Masters non ci vede chiaro
Japanese: 熱く冷たいアリバイ
Portuguese: O Mistério do Corta-Papéis
Spanish: Soplo caliente, soplo frïo
(aka Barbacoa Sagrienta)

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