Skip to main content

Erle Stanley Gardner

Biography

Erle Stanley Gardner

One of the best-selling authors of all time, Erle Stanley Gardner’s greatest creations include crusading attorney Perry Mason (star of more than 80 novels, not to mention the long-running TV series and TV movies) and the hardboiled detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, who appeared in more than two dozen adventures of their own. An attorney himself, Gardner also founded the Court of Last Resort, a group that investigated criminal cases they believed had ended in an erroneous conviction. The group’s real-world detective work resulted in a number of convictions being reversed and prevented the execution of at least one man who was later proved innocent.

Erle Stanley Gardner

Books by Erle Stanley Gardner

Shills Can't Cash Chips
by Erle Stanley Gardner, writing as A. A. Fair - Fiction, Hard-boiled Mystery, Mystery

From the world-famous creator of Perry Mason, Erle Stanley Gardner --- at his death the best-selling American writer of all time --- comes another baffling case for the Cool & Lam detective agency. Return to the 1960s as a simple insurance investigation into a car accident puts Bertha Cool and Donald Lam on the trail of murder --- and Donald hip-deep in danger when he poses as an ex-con to infiltrate a criminal gang. It's Gardner's twistiest caper ever, and a fitting conclusion to Hard Case Crime's revival of this classic (and long unavailable) detective series.

The Count of 9
by Erle Stanley Gardner, writing as A. A. Fair - Fiction, Hard-boiled Mystery, Mystery

At the time of his death, Erle Stanley Gardner was the best-selling American author of all time, with hundreds of millions of books in print, including the 29 cases of the brash, irresistible detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. Gardner was also one of the most ingenious plot-spinners in the field, coming up with stunning twists and reveals...and THE COUNT OF 9 is Gardner at his twistiest. Hired to protect the treasures of a globe-trotting adventurer, Bertha and Donald confront an impossible crime: how could anything be smuggled out of a dinner party --- least of all a six-foot-long blowgun --- when the guests were X-rayed coming and going? But that's nothing compared to the crime they face next: AN IMPOSSIBLE MURDER.

Turn on the Heat: A Cool & Lam Mystery
by Erle Stanley Gardner, writing as A. A. Fair - Fiction, Hard-boiled Mystery, Mystery

Hired by a mysterious “Mr. Smith” to find a woman who vanished 21 years earlier, Donald Lam finds himself facing a sadistic cop, a desperate showgirl, a duplicitous client, and one very dogged (and beautiful) newspaper reporter --- while Bertha Cool’s attempts to cut herself in on this lucrative opportunity land them both hip-deep in murder.

The Knife Slipped: The Lost Cool & Lam Mystery
by Erle Stanley Gardner - Fiction, Hard-boiled Mystery, Mystery

Lost for more than 75 years, THE KNIFE SLIPPED was meant to be the second book in the Cool & Lam series, but was shelved when Erle Stanley Gardner’s publisher objected to (among other things) Bertha Cool’s tendency to “talk tough, swear, smoke cigarettes, and try to gyp people.” But this tale of adultery and corruption, of double-crosses and triple identities --- however shocking for 1939 --- shines today as a glorious present from the past, a return to the heyday of private eyes and shady dames, of powerful criminals, crooked cops, blazing dialogue and delicious plot twists.