"This is an insurance company. They've had their eye on us for a while. It's the kind of business there's money in, Donald, not this wild-eyed sharpshooting you've been doing."
Donald Lam is the one given to wild-eyed sharpshooting. He's small--their sometime friend in the L.A. police department calls him 'Pint Size'--no good in a fight, but quick-talking and attractive to the ladies.
And there's Elsie Brand, the office secretary, who's more than half in love with Donald.
But before that initial meeting with Hawley is over, he says:
"I may as well tell you, Lam, we think there's an element of danger involved.""Personal?""Yes."
Well, of course there is.
Carter Holgate was driving too fast and smashed into the rear end of Vivian Deshler's car. She's claiming whiplash and looking for the insurance company to pay up. Holgate admits the accident. But now Vivian has disappeared and various people are--not the insurance company--offering cash for witnesses to the accident. Something is fishy. When did the accident occur? Did it occur?
The body is discovered (it's Holgate's) in the trunk of the Cool and Lam Agency car and Donald is wanted for the murder. He would have needed Bertha to pull it off.
"'Fry me for an oyster!' Bertha said.'They just might do that."
As an accomplice to murder.
"Fry me for an oyster!" is one of Bertha's favorite sayings. "Dice me for a carrot," also shows up in this one.
But of course the person who committed the murder is neither Donald nor Bertha. All in all a pretty entertaining entry to the series.
It's a pretty late entry in the series. Wikipedia tells me it's #22 out of the thirty and it came out in 1960.
Vintage Mystery, Silver, Brunette: We'll go with that 'vivid brunette, who walked impatiently as though her good-looking legs were trying to push the sidewalk out of the way.'
He's another author I've always meant to read, but just haven't yet.
ReplyDeleteThe Perry Mason books can be pretty fun.
DeleteThat was weird. I unspammed your comment, and then replied, and it still turned back into spam. I don't know what they're doing!?!
DeleteThe repartee between grouchy Bertha and freewheeling Lam is always a treat as in Elsie Brand’s devotion to Lam. Not just a pretty name (I had two aunts named Elsie), she is a Gardnerian Ideal Woman a la Della Street: loyal, resourceful, game, insightful, quick-witted, kind, and easy on the eye. At the end of Owls Don't Blink (1942) Lam’s decision to enlist in the Navy takes a fuming Bertha by surprise (she finagled him a deferment). But having feelings for Lam, Elsie hurts when their good-byes are so hurried but she's proud that he’s going to serve.
ReplyDeleteAnd Elsie's a useful organizer in this one!
DeleteIt's nice that they've been reprinted. I think I read a couple as a teenager, but I've picking them up as I see them in the reprints & they're fun. Owls Don't Blink isn't one I've seen yet, though.