Spill the Jackpot

I am a big fan of the Donald Lam / Bertha Cool mysteries, and I think this surprising book may be the best of the bunch (a minority opinion from the scattered ratings of other readers here).

The book opens with Donald picking up Bertha from a sanitarium; she has been seriously ill and lost quite a bit of weight. When their new client starts complementing her on her appearance, she goes on a diet and gets in touch with her feminine side (don’t worry-- she’ll be back to normal by the end of the book).

Meanwhile, Donald gets beaten up repeatedly, makes both new friends and new enemies, quits his job to run away with a fugitive, takes boxing lessons, and comes pretty darn close to falling in love. He’s a more complicated character in show more this book, and Gardner gives us a much more nuanced concept of Justice. In the end, of course, Donald outsmarts everyone, and does his best to make sure that the good guys get a break, and the bad guys pay for it.

The ending is a beautiful combination of satisfying, touching, and funny, much as you’d expect (in a totally different genre) from Lois McMaster Bujold. Highly recommended, although I’m not sure you can really appreciate this book without some sense of how it fits in the context of the entire series. show less

One of the series Erle Stanley Gardner wrote under the transparent pen-name A.A. Fair (the later editions such as this one identified Fair as Gardner on the cover) . Bertha Cool is fat, ugly, and greedy -- Donald Lam is reasonably smart and handsome -- sort of an Archie Goodwin with a very inferior female Wolfe. IThey are usually based in California, but in this case they are in Los Vegas looking for a beautiful young woman who had vanished.

Donald Lam & Bertha Cool