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Carregando... Spill the Jackpot (1941)de A. A. Fair, Erle Stanley Gardner
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Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. One of the series Erle Stanley Gardner wrote under the transparent pen-name A.A. Fair (the later editions such as this one identified Fair as Gardner on the cover) . Bertha Cool is fat, ugly, and greedy -- Donald Lam is reasonably smart and handsome -- sort of an Archie Goodwin with a very inferior female Wolfe. IThey are usually based in California, but in this case they are in Los Vegas looking for a beautiful young woman who had vanished. ( ) I am a big fan of the Donald Lam / Bertha Cool mysteries, and I think this surprising book may be the best of the bunch (a minority opinion from the scattered ratings of other readers here). The book opens with Donald picking up Bertha from a sanitarium; she has been seriously ill and lost quite a bit of weight. When their new client starts complementing her on her appearance, she goes on a diet and gets in touch with her feminine side (don’t worry-- she’ll be back to normal by the end of the book). Meanwhile, Donald gets beaten up repeatedly, makes both new friends and new enemies, quits his job to run away with a fugitive, takes boxing lessons, and comes pretty darn close to falling in love. He’s a more complicated character in this book, and Gardner gives us a much more nuanced concept of Justice. In the end, of course, Donald outsmarts everyone, and does his best to make sure that the good guys get a break, and the bad guys pay for it. The ending is a beautiful combination of satisfying, touching, and funny, much as you’d expect (in a totally different genre) from Lois McMaster Bujold. Highly recommended, although I’m not sure you can really appreciate this book without some sense of how it fits in the context of the entire series. sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
The diminutive detective and his bulldog of a boss head to Las Vegas to find a runaway bride in this hard-boiled mystery by the creator of Perry Mason. Donald Lam and Bertha Cool make for a couple of unlikely detectives. Donald is a charming ex-lawyer in his thirties who may lack brawn but makes up for it in brains. Bertha, meanwhile, is a fifty-something-year-old widow who won't take lip from anyone. She certainly won't let a bout of illness keep her down. After a stay at the sanitarium, she and Donald are off to Las Vegas for their latest case. Who needs rest? Mr. Whitewell needs Donald and Bertha to find his son's fiancée and learn why she abruptly left town. Donald quickly gets to work with just a mysterious letter as his only lead. Soon he uncovers a scheme to swindle casinos, along with a brutal murder. Now he must determine what's going on before someone ensures he's the next member of the agency to have a long hospital stay--or worse. "The best American writer, of course, is Erle Stanley Gardner." --Evelyn Waugh "Gardner has a way of moving the story forward that is almost a lost art: great stretches of dialogue alternate with lively chunks of exposition, and the two work together perfectly, without sacrificing momentum." --Booklist Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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