<p><img src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/the-deadly-percheron.jpg" width="162" height="242" alt="The Deadly Percheron.jpg" style="float:right;margin-left:8px;" />Sometimes you say things on Twitter without thinking. Well <i>mostly</i> 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.</p>
<p>I then remembered. There's one truly great and much-ignored crime classic that <i>does</i> 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.</p>
<p>It's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Percheron-John-Franklin-Bardin/dp/1933618108" target="_blank">The Deadly Percheron</a></i> by John Franklin Bardin.</p>
<p>Here is Allan Guthrie's excellent summation of the opening from a review on Amazon...</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>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.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Magical stuff. Do try it. Oh, and best ignore that tweet.</p>