Book 145

Shills Can't Cash Chips

by Erle Stanley Gardner

Published 14 December 2014

Money in the bank had always been a persuasive factor in Bertha Cool's life - and Lamont Hawley represented a lot of it. He also represented an insurance company that smelled a rat about a traffic-accident claim. The trouble was the claimant had drifted away - a beautiful blonde who had been co-operative and level-headed. In fact, too level-headed ... she sounded almost professional.

Donald Lam didn't like it. Why should a large insurance company need an outside investigator? But Bertha's eyes see $$$ so Donald gets cracking, and within no time he is the prime suspect. For what on earth is a body doing in the trunk of Donald's car?


Top of the Heap

by Erle Stanley Gardner

Published 1 October 2004
A CLASSIC COOL AND LAM NOVEL FROM THE CREATOR OF PERRY MASON, ERLE STANLEY GARDNER

HBO series Perry Mason airs June 2020 starring Matthew Rhys in the titular role.

When the beautiful girlfriend of a notorious gangster vanishes, the last man to be seen with her needs an alibi – and fast.  Enter Donald Lam of the Cool & Lam detective agency.  Donald tracks down the two women with whom his client claims to have spent the night and the client declares the case closed.

But it’s not.  Something about his client’s story doesn’t add up, and Donald can’t resist the temptation to keep digging.  Before he knows it, he’s dug up connections to a mining scam, an illegal casino, and a double homicide – plus an opportunity for an enterprising private eye to make a small fortune, if he can just stay alive long enough to cash in on it!

The Knife Slipped

by Erle Stanley Gardner

Published 6 December 2016
At the time of his death, Erle Stanley Gardner was the best-selling American author of the 20th century, and world famous as the creator of crusading attorney Perry Mason. Gardner also created the hardboiled detective team of Cool and Lam, stars of 29 novels published between 1939 and 1970 -- and one that's never been published until now.Lost for more than 75 years, THE KNIFE SLIPPED was meant to be the second book in the series but shelved when Gardner's publisher objected to (among other things) Bertha Cool's tendency to "talk tough, swear, smoke cigarettes, and try to gyp people." But this tale of adultery and corruption, of double-crosses and triple identities -- however shocking for 1939 -- shines today as a glorious present from the past, a return to the heyday of private eyes and shady dames, of powerful criminals, crooked cops, blazing dialogue, and delicious plot twists.