Top of the Heap - (Cool and Lam) by Erle Stanley Gardner (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner - during his life, the best-selling American author of all time - comes a lost classic of detective fiction featuring private eyes Donald Lam (once played by Frank Sinatra!) and Bertha Cool.

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!

Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR FOOLS DIE ON FRIDAY
"Another ebullient dash down Memory Lane with Los Angeles private eyes Bertha Cool and Donald Lam...great fun."
- Kirkus Reviews

"[T]ightly written, fast-moving, funny in the right places, and entertaining from page one right to the end."
- Deadly Pleasures Magazine

PRAISE FOR SHILLS CAN'T CASH CHIPS
"Fun, entertaining, and addictive... Brain candy. Reading for pleasure as it's meant to be... Once again, Hard Case Crime breathes new life into a classic crime fiction novel." - New York Journal of Books

"A sterling example of how the job of writing private-eye fiction is properly performed by a master of the genre." - BookReporter

"For those who like their crime fiction to be high-octane, this novel is a stunner."
- Daily Mail

"A delightful read with innumerable twists and turns, a satisfying ending, and great one-liners - what's not to love about Shills Can't Cash Chips?" - STORGY Review

"Fans of golden-age pulp fiction will love this resurrected wisecracking 1961 example of the genre... It's packed with dangerous dames, scams, mobsters and the like, very redolent of the Bogie and Cagney era movies." - Peterborough Telegraph Review

"If you're looking for some entertaining mysteries, I recommend the Lam/Cool series and especially this newly reprinted volume." - George Kelley

About the Author

One of the best-selling authors of all time, Erle Stanley Gardner's greatest creations include crusading attorney Perry Mason (star of more than eighty novels, a TV series and TV movies) and the hardboiled detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, who appeared in more than two dozen adventures. An attorney himself, Gardner also founded the Court of Last Resort, a group that investigated criminal cases they believed had ended in wrong convictions.