Why read The Deadly Percheron?

Book cover of The Deadly Percheron

Book description

Between 1946 and 1948 john franklin bardin produced 3 quite extraordinary novels, all distinguished by a hallucinatory intensity of feeling and an absorption in morbid psychology remarkable for the period. "the deadly percheron", "the last of philip banter" and "devil take the blue-tail fly" are unlike anything else in modern…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Deadly Percheron as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Peter Guttridge

Author

More insane narrators (or are they?) but you can’t get more unreliable than that. Discovered these thematically linked novels decades ago and came back to them when I was trying to work out the voice of the Trunk Murderer in my Trilogy and what mental state that person might have been in.

In The Deadly Percheron a psychiatrist has a patient, otherwise seeming perfectly sane, claiming delusions that aren’t necessarily believable. (Except, of course, in fiction the best delusions are. The psychiatrist is drawn in and you know that’s not going to end well.)

From Peter's list on The best quartets & trilogies with unreliable narrators.

Jan-Andrew Henderson

Author

This hard-boiled noir is another odd choice because it certainly has its flaws. Written in the 1940s, it has stilted dialogue, dubious motivation, and prose that shows its age. Yet, none of that can stop it from being a classic, in my opinion. Why? Because it has a ‘What The Actual F**ck?’ plot of stunning originality. And one of the coolest titles around. A deadly Percheron? I was sold from page one.

From Jan-Andrew's list on The best books with absolutely crazy plots.