The skies are blue, the sun unrelenting and the body count escalating in the Bakersfield, California, of Honey Don’t! , where Margaret Qualley ’s private investigator tries to get a handle on the nefarious goings-on in her city with a small-town feel.

It’s the second film in Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s so-called “lesbian B-movie trilogy,” and while this shaggy caper might not add up to anything significant — perhaps part of the “B-movie” point — it is fun and immensely watchable. That’s thanks in large part to Qualley’s turn as the smoothly confident Honey O’Donahue, kind of a Philip Marlowe, or maybe Veronica Mars , in cherry-red lipstick, high heels and silks (inspired choices for the sweltering setting by costume designer Peggy Schnitzer).

Honey is meant to be strikingly “ot

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