Gold Comes in Bricks

Gold Comes in Bricks – Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A.A. Fair

1940 saw publication of the third of 29 novels starring PI’s Donald Lam and Bertha Cool. Like Laurel and Hardy, the partnership features the shrimpy one and the stout one.

This mystery opens with the slight Lam taking lessons in the martial arts at the behest of his employer Cool, who likes her tobacco, liquor, and comfort. She thinks he needs some toughening up in order to avoid getting beaten up on the job.

The client Henry Ashbury, concerned about his independent-minded daughter’s burning through his money, hires Cool and Lam to look into the girl’s financial dealings iffy associates. So that the daughter will not wonder why Lam is in the house he is to pose as Ashbury’s personal trainer.

It’s a dumb plan, but miser Cool sees only the bucks to be earned by Lam. Dubious but really shaking the tree, Lam uncovers a complex but not too bewildering trail involving fraud, blackmail, and murder. As is usual in the Cool and Lam books, they make the situation worse until they grift the grifters and narrowly escape being arrested just for being pains in the neck.

The strain between thinking machine Lam and bull in the china shop Cool is as funny as Cool’s smarmy concern over Lam’s love life. Women inevitably fall in love with Lam for his gentlemanly respect and willingness to listen. So Cool is concerned that Lam will end up in romantically deep waters and lose his focus working for her. It’s a hoot.