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.

She played the odds and lost! 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 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.

How did Donald Lam get all the dames? He was just a brainy little guy, but he had the damnedest way with women...The blondes melted like wax. "You're the first guy who's given me a break" said one. "Kiss me." Lam kissed her. "To hell with that stuff," she said. "Really kiss me." She was only the first - but even the busiest lady's man has to take time out for murder, especially when he's been too chummy with a corpse and the cops are out for blood...his blood.

Bertha Cool has just been released from a sanitarium where she has been recovering from flu and pneumonia, but soon she and Donald Lam are on the hunt for a missing bride-to-be.They become tangled in case filled with slot-machine skullduggery, a double-crossing client, murder and a spot of financial finagling before they eventually achieve their goal.

Dr. Hilton Devarest was a whiz at curing patients, but his private life was sick, sick, sick. He lived with a wife who was as warped as she was repulsive, a secretary who enjoyed fun and games with the doctor every morning before breakfast, a niece who believed nice girls finished nowhere, and a nephew whose only means of support was making women happy. Donal Lam and Bertha Cool got involved with the not-so-good doctor when he hired them to find some stolen jewels. But soon they were in the fight of their lives against a killer who thought murder was the best medicine, and was out to treat them to an overdose of death...

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.

It started as a routine tail - shadowing an oily hustler who'd been courting a well-healed matron. But the assignment soon led Donald Lam to a sleazy hotel room with a sexy barfly. And now she's left him high and dry with a pair of corpses dumped in his lap. Suddenly he's the cops' prime suspect. And it'll take some fancy footwork to sidestep the law - and the real killer, who intends to leave Bertha Cool partnerless.

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.

Two incidents involving a Peeping Tom are reported from the Swim and Tan Motel to the detective agency belonging to Donald Lam and Bertha Cool. Bertha, meanwhile, has warned Donald to steer clear of the dangerous jobs and stick to aiding solid, sane citizens like Montrose L. Carson. And all Carson wants is the name of the informer in his office who is passing on confidential material to a business rival, Herbert Dowling.But when Dowling is murdered at the Swim and Tan Motel, it looks as though Bertha has picked the wrong client, and Donald the right girl when he chooses a lively bait to catch the Peeping Tom ... and the murderer.

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?

Carleton Allen, son-in-law of a millionaire tycoon and nervous of publicity, explains to Bertha Cool and Donald Lam that he's mixed up in a first-class scandal. He's spent the night with a blonde while his wife was away, and that same night at the motel a man was murdered. Donald doesn't believe the story, but the large retaining fee is too great a temptation to Bertha. So, once again, the intrepid partnership is off on a dangerous mission involving blackmail - and murder ...

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.