As you can see on the cover of this new edition of Fools Die on Friday (1947), Raymond Chandler wrote to Erle Stanley Gardner in 1948 and complemented him with these words: “Fools Die on Friday is about the best of the series since the first two. Perhaps since the very first.” Those words may have been premature given that the Donald Lam-Bertha Cool series has 30 books and Fools Die on Friday is only book #11.
The title comes from Erle Stanley Gardner’s observation that most executions occur on a Friday. In this case Donald Lam and Bertha Cool are hired to prevent a potential poisoning. Donald Lam decides on a tricky strategy that sounds good in theory…but fails monumentally. Lam and Cool have to scramble to limit the damage and catch the killer.
I read Fools Die on Friday back in the 1960s when I binged on both of Gardner’s series: Perry Mason and Lam-Cool. Fools Die on Friday is the sixth book of the series that Hard Case Crime has reprinted. I’m hoping they reprint the whole series! The plots are tricky and the action causes the pages to turn. GRADE: B
Not sure if I ever read Erle Stanley Gardner back in the 60’s. My mother read him so there was always Gardner books around.
Steve, around the mid-1960s I binged on Erle Stanley Gardner books which were everywhere. I alternated between Perry Masons and the Donald Lam-Bertha Cool paperbacks. FOOLS DIE ON FRIDAY was out-of-print for 50 years so I’m glad Hard Case Crime reprinted it.
I’m always stunned at the amount of Garner books I see in used book stores. I feel like I should read one of them at some point and the fact some are still being reprinted seems to indicate that some of them must be good reads. What would you recommend?
Byron, I think you might enjoy THE KNIFE SLIPPED in the Donald Lam-Bertha Cool series. You can read my review here: http://georgekelley.org/forgotten-books-406-the-knife-slipped-by-erle-stanley-gardner/
And if you want to try a Perry Mason, I recommend THE CASE OF THE BORROWED BRUNETTE. You can read my review here: http://georgekelley.org/fridays-forgotten-books-543-the-case-of-the-borrow-brunette-by-erle-stanley-gardner/
Thanks for the tips. I’m leaning toward THE CASE OF THE BORROWED BRUNETTE but THE KNIFE SLIPPED does soynd intriguing. I’m going to hit the used bookstores in another week or two and will look for both. If I don’t have any luck there I’ll jump online.
My mother read Gardner too, and we all watched the Raymond Burr Mason series faithfully. I read my first Gardners in a 3-in-1 collection my mother had. Then when I was working in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s, occasionally I’d walk over to the last remaining used book stores on lower Fourth Avenue at lunch time. One time they got in a TON of Gardner’s books, some in William Morrow first editions, some on cheap Triangle reprints, most of them pretty battered and some with back covers on paperback editions glued inside the covers. They were cheap too, so I started buying the rarer, non series books and things like the Gramps Wiggins and Terry Clane books, then the Doug Selby, D.A. series. I decided to read the Masons in order from the beginning, so bought the ones I needed to fill in first.
Byron, besides what George said, I would look for one of the short story collections. Crippen & Landru has done several : The Danger Zone, The Casebook of Sidney Zoom, and The Exploits of the Patent Leather Kid. And there were other, earlier collections too.
Hot Cash, Cold Clews: The Adventures of Lester Leith is the fourth and final Crippen & Landru Gardner collection.
Jeff, that’s good ESG advice! Those Crippen & Landru collections deliver some excellent stories!
I didn’t know Gardner had shot story collections but that makes sense and is a great idea. Thank you.
My father read the Gardners when we were living in northern Manitoba and I know I read a couple of the Perry Masons. Another author I remember was George Harmon Coxe and later Brett Halliday. Not many choices with no bookstore in the town No doubt I still have a Mason or two in my basement that I purchased years later, but never read
Kent, I remember in the Sixties and Seventies it was easy to find George Harmon Coxe books and plenty of Brett Halliday’s Michael Shayne mystery paperbacks. Gone are those days…