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An odd couple of detectives descends on New Orleans to search for a missing heiress in this hard-boiled mystery by the creator of Perry Mason. Bertha Cool is a bulldog of a woman with an attitude to match. Donald Lam is a handsome ex-lawyer who makes up for in brains what he lacks in brawn. Together, they're an unlikely pair of private detectives on a mission to find Roberta Fenn, a missing model and heiress in New Orleans. It's a seemingly simple case of lost and found . . . Except, Donald show more can't help but wonder why someone would hire a firm out of Los Angeles instead of one based in the Big Easy. Also, locating Roberta proves surprisingly effortless. Keeping track of her is not. She disappears, leaving a body behind in her apartment. Now Cool and Lam must find Roberta and a killer, before someone makes them disappear as well . . . "Cool and Lam are an amusing and endearing pair-perfect foils for one another." -Monica Muller, 1001 Nights: The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction "No one has ever matched Gardner for swift, sure exposition." -Kirkus Reviews. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Bertha Cool and her partner Donald Lam have been hired by an New York attorney to find a person in New Orleans. A simple job, but a little unusual since there are P.I.s in New Orleans that can do the job. Money is money and that is a big motivator for Bertha.
They have a description of the girl but no details as to why the search. They locate the girl and notify the attorney. Job done. Or is it?
Seems just a day after they locate her she disappears again! The attorney asks them to find her again. This time there is more to this job...seems a murder is on the hunt for the girl also. This becomes apparent when Bertha and Donald find a dead man in the girl's apartment. Something isn't looking right and Donald is determined to find out what show more the true story is. Even if it means keeping her away from the New Orleans and Los Angeles police departments.
A.A. Fair is a pen name for Erle Stanley Gardner. Instead of an attorney it is two P.I.s that solve the case. Written in the 1940s it is a good way to go back in time for a bit. show less
They have a description of the girl but no details as to why the search. They locate the girl and notify the attorney. Job done. Or is it?
Seems just a day after they locate her she disappears again! The attorney asks them to find her again. This time there is more to this job...seems a murder is on the hunt for the girl also. This becomes apparent when Bertha and Donald find a dead man in the girl's apartment. Something isn't looking right and Donald is determined to find out what show more the true story is. Even if it means keeping her away from the New Orleans and Los Angeles police departments.
A.A. Fair is a pen name for Erle Stanley Gardner. Instead of an attorney it is two P.I.s that solve the case. Written in the 1940s it is a good way to go back in time for a bit. show less
One of the series by Erle Stanley Gardner under the pseudonym A.A. Fair, about Donald Lam, a conventional private detective, and his partner, Bertha Cool, a fat, ugly, unpleasant woman. This one is unusual in being set in New Orleans, where they have gone to search for a woman named Roberta Fenn who vanished thee years before.
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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
- Canonical title
- Owls Don't Blink
- Original title
- Owls Don't Blink
- Original publication date
- 1942
- People/Characters
- Bertha Cool; Donald Lam
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 152
- Popularity
- 213,338
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.38)
- Languages
- 5 — Czech, English, Finnish, German, Hungarian
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 22
