Cool and Lam – serie

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.

The story of how a man can commit a brutal murder, confess, and get away with it!The killer was guilty without a shred of doubt. The police had him behind bars. The district attorney had plenty of evidence. But - no court in the state could convict him!The Bigger They Come features that fast-moving, skull-cracking team: Bertha Cool, a two-hundred pound "lady" who uses the language of a longshoreman. And Donald Lam, a pint-sized process server who would have been in the morgue long ago except that he can think faster than the next man ... or woman.

Roberta Fenn was every man's dream - a clinging climber with photogenic features and a phenomenal body. She had what it took to get what she wanted, and she wanted a lot. But one thing she wasn't looking for was an early grave, and that was where she was heading - unless the redoubtable Bertha Cool and the inimitable Donald Lam jumped in, guessed right, and moved fast to save this bedevilled dream girl from a nightmare of blackmail, double cross and murder.

It was just a routine case. All Bertha Cool had to do was help a fellow in a jam - a $20,000 jam. But it didn't stay a routine case for long. All of a sudden Bertha's client had a fistful of anonymous letters, a missing wife, and a body in his basement. Bertha Cool had her hands full. The only problem was, her hands were tied - and the murderer's were very, very busy.

Mira Woodford was a beautiful girl who believed that the best things in life were expensive. She bartered her youthful charms for the rewards of being an old man's bride, and her investment paid off in millions when she suddenly became his widow.When Bertha Cool sent Donald Lam to find out if Mira's kisses had turned to poison for the rich little poor girl's late husband, one look at Mira made Donald eager to see for himself how deadly her embrace really was. But though Mira was lovely and willing, her past was ugly and threatening - and when passion and blackmail went hand in hand, murder could not be far behind.

John Dittmar Ansel walked into the Cool-Lam office and asked them to trace a man named Karl, who, six years before, gave him an idea for a story. Donald Lam - always the suspicious one - immediately smelled a rat. And his nose had not betrayed him: investigation proved that Mr Ansel wasn't a writer at all; and Karl had died by a bullet. Bertha Cool and Donald Lam decided that this was a case worth pursuing, and before long they found they were not the only ones with a vested interest in the six-year-old mystery.

Donald Lam arrives at work one day to find an outraged police sergeant Frank Sellers stewing in the office of his senior partner, Bertha Cool. Sellers is close to cracking an armoured car robbery case, but in the course of his investigation, a telephone number for the Cool-Lam detective agency was found on one of his primary suspects - one Hazel Downer.The same Hazel Downer employs Donald Lam to find her husband who has run off with another broad, taking her fifty thousand dollars with him. Wasn't it fifty thousand dollars that haven't been recovered from the armoured car job ... ?

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?

Bertha Cool was in a flap. The distinguished Mr Homer Breckinridge had been waiting twenty minutes for Donald Lam to make an appearance, and around Mr Breckinridge was the heady aroma of C-A-S-H.Then Donald appeared and in no time found himself hired to investigate an insurance claim. 'Such nice, safe, respectable work', purred Bertha, 'and it's up for grabs.'But it didn't take Donald long to find out he was anything but safe and that he was the one up for grabs ...

Clayton Dawson came to Lam & Cool as a last resort. He needed an under-cover agent to 'protect the family name'.Bertha Cool didn't want to take the case, but Donald Lam talked her into it when their client laid twelve one-hundred-dollar bulls on the table. What seemed a simple case of protecting an undisciplined daughter soon erupted into an explosion of trouble for Lam - trouble in the form of murder and blackmail.

Blackmail was a dirty business and Donald Lam liked to stay clear of it. But for his partner, Bertha Cool, no business was too dirty to handle at the right price. And the price for this job was certainly right.What was wrong, though, was a payoff for pictures that weren't worth a dime, a free dinner that cost the blackmailer his life, and more than a couple of double-crosses that framed Donald Lam quite neatly for a charge of murder ...

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.

Death gave its warning in the form of a luscious brunette. She walked into the office of Donald Lam and Bertha Cool, calmly announced that her employer was about to be killed, and paid them a healthy fee to keep the boss alive.For Cool this case meant cold cash. For Lam it meant warm curves. But before long it meant murder ...