Turn on the Heat
Registered by 
perryfran
of Elk Grove, California USA on 6/14/2021
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
perryfran of Elk Grove, California USA on 6/14/2021 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
Received from a PaperbackSwap member in California
Strange bedfellows can be political poison, and the candidate had picked himself a dilly. She was ruthless and corrupt and had enough on him to smear his shining armour with front page mud.
Donald Lam and Bertha Cool told him not to worry. Women were Donald's speciality, the more dangerous the better. But when the lovely lady turned up dead, the case took an ugly twist. Suddenly Lam and Cool were in the middle of a red-hot race where bullets, not ballots, counted.
Strange bedfellows can be political poison, and the candidate had picked himself a dilly. She was ruthless and corrupt and had enough on him to smear his shining armour with front page mud.
Donald Lam and Bertha Cool told him not to worry. Women were Donald's speciality, the more dangerous the better. But when the lovely lady turned up dead, the case took an ugly twist. Suddenly Lam and Cool were in the middle of a red-hot race where bullets, not ballots, counted.
Erle Stanley Gardner is of course the author of the Perry Mason series of crime novels. He also wrote another series about the detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam under the pseudonym A.A. Fair. TURN ON THE HEAT was the second book in the Cool and Lam series and was originally published in 1940.
I read this one because I recently read and enjoyed one of Gardner's Perry Mason mysteries and happened to have a copy of the Hard Case Crime reprint of this Cool and Lam story. Cool and Lam are kind of an unlikely pair of detectives. Bertha Cool runs the operation and is a middle-aged overweight woman who likes to flash her diamonds and doesn't take any crap. Lam is a younger man who may be slightly underweight and short—kind of like a Laurel and Hardy pair of PIs. In this novel, a man named Smith hires them to find a woman named Amelia Lintig who vanished 20 years earlier. Smith doesn't tell them why he wants her found but heads him in the direction of a small town, Oakview, where she lived. Well this case turns very convoluted—Smith is not who he seems, the woman he is after is his ex-wife, and others are also looking for her. The case is all related to another town where Smith is seeking election as mayor to try to clean up the town and get rid of the corrupt people in power. So why does he need to find his ex-wife? A murder happens along the way which Lam also must try to solve since the prime suspect is Smith.
I didn't enjoy this as much as the Perry Mason stories but it did hold my interest. It's not a straight-forward murder mystery but is more of a complicated tale about broken marriages, political corruption, nightclubs, and crooked cops and politicians. I mildly enjoyed this but not sure when or if I will be reading more of these.
I read this one because I recently read and enjoyed one of Gardner's Perry Mason mysteries and happened to have a copy of the Hard Case Crime reprint of this Cool and Lam story. Cool and Lam are kind of an unlikely pair of detectives. Bertha Cool runs the operation and is a middle-aged overweight woman who likes to flash her diamonds and doesn't take any crap. Lam is a younger man who may be slightly underweight and short—kind of like a Laurel and Hardy pair of PIs. In this novel, a man named Smith hires them to find a woman named Amelia Lintig who vanished 20 years earlier. Smith doesn't tell them why he wants her found but heads him in the direction of a small town, Oakview, where she lived. Well this case turns very convoluted—Smith is not who he seems, the woman he is after is his ex-wife, and others are also looking for her. The case is all related to another town where Smith is seeking election as mayor to try to clean up the town and get rid of the corrupt people in power. So why does he need to find his ex-wife? A murder happens along the way which Lam also must try to solve since the prime suspect is Smith.
I didn't enjoy this as much as the Perry Mason stories but it did hold my interest. It's not a straight-forward murder mystery but is more of a complicated tale about broken marriages, political corruption, nightclubs, and crooked cops and politicians. I mildly enjoyed this but not sure when or if I will be reading more of these.
Journal Entry 3 by perryfran at Paperbackswap in -- Paperbackswap.com, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- USA on Monday, November 7, 2022
perryfran at Paperbackswap in -- Paperbackswap.com, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- USA on Monday, November 7, 2022
Released 1 yr ago (11/8/2022 UTC) at Paperbackswap in -- Paperbackswap.com, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Sent to a PaperbackSwap member in VA. Enjoy!
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Please make a journal entry to let me know that this book has been caught so I know that it has found a good home with you. If you are new to BookCrossing, please consider joining and indicate that you were referred by perryfran. I hope that you enjoy the book. You can make another journal entry with your comments when you are done reading.
Then, whenever you are ready to send it on its way, make a release note to show where the book was released. Then watch its journey. You’ll be alerted by e-mail each time someone makes another journal entry. And it’s confidential (you are known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your e-mail address), free, and spam-free.
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