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All that glitters isn't gold. A rich man sends Donald Lam looking for a man - when he really wants to find a woman. A minor missing persons case turns out to be a major one. And a pleasure boat on pontoons serves as a smuggler's ship on wheels. This is a job for detectives who know their fact from fiction, and Bertha Cool and Donald Lam are pitted against people who know too well that all grass isn't green.Tags
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Detective fiction was never better than when Gardner was in his prime. After making his creation Perry Mason into a household name he branched out under a pseudonym. This effort featured dope smuggling and a witness who is both more, and less, than he seems in this suspenseful tale. Donald Lam, as a detective, is in stark contrast to the fictional hard-boiled types of his era. Donald is short, weighs 130 pounds soaking wet, and gets beat up quite frequently. While he does get into several fistfights, he loses all but one — a single fistfight against an insurance investigator in Double or Quits. It should be noted that this was only after taking boxing lessons and studying jujitsu with a master named Hashita in Gold Comes in Bricks. show more Donald doesn't carry a gun because, as he says: A) "A gun, a good type of gun such as I would want to carry, costs money", and B) "People are always taking it away from me and beating me up" (meaning the gun). He primary weapon is his brain, not his brawn. show less
The last Cool/Lam book. Gardner was 80 and in poor health, but the book is still readable, but with a few extended digressions.
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Author Information
863+ Works 30,659 Members
Mystery writer Erle Gardner was born on July 17, 1889 in Malden, Massachusetts. In 1902, he had moved to Oroville, CA. His parents could not afford to send a second son to college, so he worked in a legal office as a clerk reading law. He spent a short time at Valparaiso University in Indiana but had to drop out because of an illegal boxing show more exhibition. He continued to travel throughout California and read law at several law offices and finally passed the bar in 1911, at the age of 21. He married Natalie Francis Beatrice Talbert on April 9, 1912. In 1916, he formed the Law Firm of Orr and Gardner in Venture, CA. Gardner used many pseudonyms such as Charles Green, Kyle Corning and Grant Holiday. While working as an attorney, he began writing fiction. In 1921, "Nellie's Naughty Nighty" was published in the pulp magazine Breezy Stories. He had a goal of writing 100,000 words a month and would sometimes write two or more stories a day. In 1923, "The Shrieking Skeleton" was sold to the Black Mask Magazine. In the 1930's, Gardner had two manuscripts that were rejected and than "rediscovered" by Thayer Hobson, the president of the William Morrow Publishing Company, and rewritten as courtroom mysteries. During this process, the character Perry Mason was born. In 1933, the first Perry Mason book was written, "The Case of the Velvet Claws." The next one was entitled "The Case of the Sulky Girl" and they were followed by more than eighty additional Mason mysteries. Gardner died on March 11, 1970. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1970
- People/Characters
- Bertha Cool; Donald Lam
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 78
- Popularity
- 404,798
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.46)
- Languages
- Danish, English, German
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 9
