The Knife Slipped (Cool and Lam)

This is a real review and not a "promo" review like the others. I have read ALL the Donald Lam/Bertha Cool books at least three times and this book bears little resemblance to any of the books in the series. I was so excited when I saw this book being released that I could hardly wait to read it. But....to my great disappointment...from page one, I had to question whether this is really from ESG. Since writing my original review, I have heard back from the editor who authenticates the book but it still is very different than the others in the series and the plotting and characters bears only a slight resplendence (imho).

The personalities, dialogue and actions of Donald and Bertha are nothing like any of the other books, including the first (this is purported to have been intended to be the second). Bertha doing much of the thinking? Donald consulting with Bertha? So much is uncharacteristic of both. Bertha buying a new car (well, a demonstrator)? Giving Donald a large bundle of expense money with no questions or push-back?

There are some suspicious events in the book. Payphones were costing Donald 10 cents. But payphones in that era were only a nickel. Other aspects of the writing, plot, and actions make it almost generic pulp fiction rather than a Lam/Cool book and perhaps the book can be enjoyed in that context.

Oh, the story itself is a convoluted mess also (imho). It quickly goes off in crazy directions and unreasonable sequences.

This is the second novel in the Donald Lam-Bertha Cool series, which was written by "A.A. Fair," a pseudonym for Erle Stanley Gardner, who is much better known, of course, for his series featuring the lawyer, Perry Mason.

Or, at least it was intended to be the second novel in the series. When Gardner turned the book into his publisher, they refused it, arguing that the book's approach to adultery and sex exceeded the limits of good taste. In the book, Bertha insists that virtually every man cheats on his wife--that it's the nature of the beast--and that an intelligent wife will simply accommodate herself to the fact and not get bent out of shape about it. But it's probably not an idea that a large number of people would have endorsed in that day and age.

Then there's the sex. At one point, Donald escorts a shapely young blonde home in the agency's car. As they sit outside the woman's apartment house, Donald reports that, "She didn't try to stop me in anything I did....She let my hands wander around the outside of her clothes, caressing her curves. I had a feeling she'd given me the key to the city, but I didn't try any doors that I thought she'd prefer to keep locked." Apparently pretty racy stuff, for 1939!

Gardner apparently never attempted to revise the book to make it more suitable for publication; he just moved on to other projects, which included twenty-nine books in the Lam-Cool series. But the Erle Stanley Gardner Trust has finally resurrected the book and the folks at Hard Case Crime have now published it, only seventy-seven years late, apparently concluding that the reading public will now be able to handle it without fainting in shock.

It's clear that Gardner is still feeling his way along here. Donald Lam is still only a junior operative in the firm and the character is still taking shape. Bertha Cool's character is already more firmly fixed--a big, tough, no-nonsense woman who squeezes every nickle until it bleeds and who believes that her firm exists solely to make money as opposed to pursuing justice, And if she has to bend a few rules along the way, that's perfectly fine.

The story opens, as they often do, when a new client appears at the office with a seemingly simple request. A woman comes in with her daughter; they believe that the daughter's husband is cheating, and they want the firm to investigate. Bertha wheedles as much money as she can out of the mother in the way of a fee and then sends Donald out to shadow the husband and get the evidence.

And, as always happens, of course, this seemingly innocuous case will morph into something much more sinister and dangerous. There will be a murder, naturally, and the case involves a lot of municipal corruption, which was a staple of pulp crime novels during this era. Through it all, Donald will struggle to survive and to solve the case, while Bertha plays all the angles in an effort to maximize her profit. It's a lot of fun and will appeal principally to fans who already know of and enjoy the series, which now rounds out at thirty books. It's nice to have this one in the collection.

I've read all of Gardner's Lam & Cool books, as well as all of his Perry Mason Stories and other works. Having said that, my impression of this book was that it was a mediocre story and definitely not one of Gardner's better books in the series. The first part of the book was odd and seemed disjointed as compared to his other writing. Half way through he was in his stride, but the plot lacked his usual zip. I purchased this book because I so enjoyed the series, but it wasn't worth it overall.

I learned to read using my Mom's Earl Stanley Gardner books, all three series, Perry Mason, Doug Selby, and Lam/Cool. It's a treat to go back to 1939 (in the book) and relive my youth. HOWEVER, fans of the series may be disappointed, as the Donald Lam in this book is far from the smart cookie encountered in later books. He is here a immature man, easily-swayed by feminine wiles. While Bertha was never an attractive personality, here she is all but loathsome. I can see why the publisher rejected it, and why Gardner dropped it and wrote the later books in the series differently.

Caveat: Apparently, nobody at this publisher actually read the book; at least, nobody communicated more than the title to the cover artist: The horrid woman on the cover appears nowhere in the book, and the only knife mentioned is figurative, not a weapon.

Wow, what a story, and especially what characters Gardner wrote. I'm a long time fan of Erle Stanley Gardner and his Perry Mason books, as well as this series, the Donald Lam and Bertha Cool series. But this book is simply a knockout. I wish the publisher had allowed this edition to be published back in 1939 -- it would have changed the series for the better. Much more raw, and with a much more profane Bertha, "the Knife Slipped" really defines the Bertha Cool character. Without this entry in the series, Gardner "cooled" down Bertha to be a humorous penny-pinching foil to Donald. But this book shows what the series could have been like. Gardner went on to placate his publisher by toning down the sex in the future volumes, using the PG euphemisms of shapely and curves to allude to female pulchritude. Instead in this book, he went fully R (OK, maybe PG-13) in his descriptions In fact, reading this book makes me wish for a Hollywood take on the detective couple, maybe Melissa McCarthy as Bertha, and a young Tom Cruise type as Donald.
Don't get me wrong, I still completely enjoyed the other 29 volumes in the DL-BC series. But this long lost novel shows what the series could have been, if Gardner's pulp background had been allowed free reign.

I've read that mostly because I was curious about Erle Stanley Gardner, the man behind Perry Mason and I was... both impressed and bored.

Let me explain: while the mystery aspect of THE KNIFE SLIPPED was the blandest, run-of-the-mill plot you can imagine (no wonder why Gardner's publisher refused it), I thought Donald Lam and Bertha Cool were...welp, different. Progressive for its time. It was fun reading a woman boss around the male protagonist for two hundred page. Enough for me to try the actual second book of the series. The one that got published.

Wee'll see where it goes.

This is the first I've read from Gardner, and it's a good one. It's more of a straight-up detective mystery than a noir, and it doesn't attempt the reach depth or weight you find in the best crime and noir novels, but it is entertaining.

Bertha Cool is the unapologetically unorthodox head of the B. Cool detective agency. Donald Lam, "the runt," is her new, wet-behind-the-ears junior detective. He's got plenty of brains and more than enough street smarts to do his job, but he has a weakness for a women in trouble, or perhaps for any woman who will give him the time of day. Or as Bertha puts it, "You pick some little tart and fall in love with her every time."

Unlike Lam, Bertha Cool has no tendency toward sentiment. She's big, fat, greedy, strong, smart, clear-eyed, determined, and will have everything her way. The two of them make quite a team. Gardner apparently published 29 novels about this pair, and they seem interesting enough to follow through a number of adventures.

This particular volume, which brings the series total to 30, was the second. Written in 1939, it was not published until 2016. I think Bertha Cool was much of the reason the original publisher refused to print it. Readers of mass market genre fiction are supposed to like the protagonists. Bertha Cool was too strong a character for readers in 1939 to stomach. Gardner could have made her more palatable to his depression-era audience by making her slim and pretty and somewhat vulnerable, but she's too strong and clear-sighted to be put in a weak body, or to be saddled with the need to be needed. She's glad her husband is dead, glad to make a living on her own, and never content to conform to expectations of what a woman should be.

Cool and Lam are pursuing an adultery case in this book. At least in the beginning. It turns into more, but I won't spoil it. Gardner's treatment of adultery, and of sexuality in general, is as factual, clear-eyed and realistic as Bertha herself. Both Bertha and Donald Lam recognize desire as an inescapable element of human existence, which is not to be shunned or neglected or too brutally suppressed. Bertha even admits early on that she engineered some of her late husband's affairs, steering him toward less destructive women, in order to preserve the peace of their union.

That sort of talk just wouldn't go over well in 1939. Nor would Lam's very reasonable attempts to convince the guilt-ridden Ruth Marr that her desire is normal, and that acting on that desire (the source of her shame) is normal too. The mystery/thriller genre in general tends to be moralistic. Readers expect a protagonist they can root for, and a villain they can root against, and they expect the good guy to win in the end.

But Gardner goes muddling with convention by having his good-guy detective tell Ruth Marr she's not a slut, and by having the fat, bossy, opinionated, unfeminine Bertha Cool push around every man she encounters. It must have added up to more than his editors could take. Worst of all, unlike the traditional bad guys who are supposed to get their comeuppance in this moralistic genre, Bertha Cool turns out to be consistently right in her cynical assessments of just about everyone.

The plot meanders a bit in the second half, as many mysteries do, but it's a good read overall.

This book was awesome. The plot is twisty, the characters well drawn and the voice smooth. I chose not to compare it to any of the other Bertha/Lam novels, but to enjoy it as authentic noir fiction.

not much as changed when viewed from Erle Stanley Gardners view

Fun to read this early entry to the Cool & Lam series which was to be 2nd in the series but rejected by publishers when originally written. Actually nice to see another side to Lam's developing character and what might of been another direction for this Erle Stanley Gardner aka A.A. Fair series.