Turn on the Heat (Hard Case Crime, 131)

Been a fan of Gardner for ages-- His Cool and Lam series under the pseudonym A.A. Fair are excellent! This is a great series, full of clever machinations and quasi-legal actions as the team of private eyes sorts out the murder mystery.

I loved the Cool & Lam novel, THE KNIFE SLIPPED and was delighted to see that Hard Case Crime had struck again in republishing what is reputed to be the best of the 29 novels in the series. Bertha Cool is a stout, diamond-bedecked head of a detective agency that employs Donald Lam, an unfairly-disbarred attorney who lives by his wits rather than by his brawn and is, in general, the outside operative, while Bertha drinks, dines, makes calls, disperses money, dons diamonds and occasionally (but decisively) goes out in the field. The setting is southern California, with some fictional cities and a Los Angeles which feels (appropriately) much smaller than its current incarnation.TURN ON THE HEAT, whose just-this-side-of-comic urgency title I love, begins as many such cases begin. A dubiously-named “Mr. Smith” hires the agency to find a woman who disappeared over twenty years ago. It looks like an estate case or a divorce case, something relatively small-scale but then it blossoms into something much larger: a world of graft, corruption, murder and things just this side of verifiable evil in a small town called Santa Carlotta. “Mr. Smith” is closer to the heart of the action than we are originally led to believe and we eventually find ourselves looking into the private life of an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist whose life is related to a shifty small town newspaper publisher, his scrappy niece, some B girls at an even more shifty ‘club’, a nasty small-town cop and some tough dames who operate apartments, rooming houses and places just this side of flop houses. The plot is very complex and at points just a little opaque, but the resolution is clear enough and quite satisfying.The high point of the novel is its stunning dialogue. Elmore Leonard teaches us that we should always ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ and that great dialogue reveals as much in a dozen words as two or three pages of description. Here the dialogue is absolutely stunning, with Donald adjusting his phrasing very deftly with each of the many people with whom he interacts. Dutch Leonard and Bob Parker are smiling down through the clouds and someone is patting Hemingway on the back. ‘Look what you’ve wrought, kid.’Bottom line: welcome to the wonderful world created by Erle Stanley Gardner back in the day when he was writing as A. A. Fair and selling books in the millions. I can’t say from experience (I’ve only read two) that this is the best of the Cool & Lam books, but it is absolutely superb.

Turn on the Heat by A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)A man going by Mr. Smith is searching for his missing wife, he comes to Donald Lam and his partner Bertha Cool for help. Secrets, mystery, intrigue abound as Lam and Cool track down the mystery behind this disappearance.Written in 1940, with engaging dialog moving at a fast pace. Lam and Cool are likable, they work well with each other. Bertha is a bold woman, ahead of her time. Lam is great with the ladies. A perfect pair to uncover a decades old mystery. I highly recommend Turn on the Heat to those who enjoy 'pulp fiction'.

This Cool & Lam novel is ultimately about what happened in the past, and its effects on today.By "today", of course, the 1930s is meant, and the plot revolves around a political reform campaign. Which, as might be expected, is opposed by corrupt politicians and their comrades, include members of the police.Very nice!

This is the fourth Bertha Cool/Donald Lam novel that I've read and they have been consistently very good so far. Erle Stanley Gardner takes a different path with Cool & Lam than with Perry Mason. The mysteries are of the same high quality, but under the pen name A.A. Fair, Gardner injects more humor into the stories, which is a nice touch. In Turn On The Heat, Donald Lam once again takes the bull by the horns, ignores his boss' intentions and orders and ends up solving a mystery and 'bringing home the bacon' to Cool, which is her one and only desire.

This was the 2nd book in the Cool & Lam series after The Knife Slipped was locked away until recently being published. This exciting 1940 novel is 252 pages and full of fun and intersting characters. The descriptions of food, cigarettes, office situations, and life in general from the late 30s is riveting.A client wants to find out about a woman who left a small town after a scandal in 1919. Several other people are interested and some others don't want Lam to find any clues. Then there is a political angle as a deceptive optometrist runs for mayor of Santa Carlotta.Berths Cool throws her weight around but not much money as a murder occurs and her and Donald Lam are in the thick of it. Erle Stanley Gardner wrote these pot boilers under the alias A. A. Fair.

Read these books as a teenager. Still a good read even if severely dated.

After reading several Gardner novels featuring Cool and Lam, this book took on a certain sameness. The plot was ok but it unfolds the same as the other books. Lam is looking for information. He meets a lovely woman gives him some info along with some light sex innuendo. Lam goes back to his hotel to find an enforcer in his room that at first tells him to leave town, then beats Lam up. It’s the same in all the books. A very tired plot device.

I love the Cool and Lam series even more than Perry Mason. Bertha Cool is always funny, but never quite as sharp as she wants you to think. It is Donald who usually saves the day, while being careful to throw credit on his boss.

Everything that Erle Stanley Gardner is good as far as I am concerned. Just love the era of Pulp Fiction.

Mi piace moltissimo la straordinaria capacità dell'autore di sviluppare trame avvincenti e complicate per poi risolverle alla fine con logica ineccepibile. Mi piace meno l'eccessiva carica di violenza e ottusità che viene sempre associata ai personaggi dei poliziotti, mai capaci di accettare la mente acuta dell'investigatore.z

I like to read Donald Pam's detective stories. I am sure of Donald's success at the end. Which is positive from my point of you. Happy Ending is what I like. This one fits into that cstegory. Very interesting, though various characters some times makes me to back and confirm.

I enjoyed Gardner's Cool & Lam books more than his Perry Masons. Would like to see more of them made available for purchase as ebooks.