Fools Die on Friday - by Erle Stanley Gardner (Paperback)

About the Book

"Private investigators Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, stars of five of Hard Case Crime's most popular novels, return to solve their toughest case yet. Hired to prevent a socialite from poisoning her husband, Donald Lam dreams up an ingenious scheme involving a carton of anchovy paste and a fictitious national ad campaign. But when the whole thing backfires spectacularly and bodies, witnesses, and suspects start piling up, it'll take every ounce of Donald's brainpower and Bertha's bruising ruthlessness to keep the police at bay - and a killer from getting away with murder."--

Book Synopsis

From Perry Mason-creator Erle Stanley Gardner comes a lost classic of detective fiction featuring private eyes Donald Lam (once played by Frank Sinatra!) and Bertha Cool.

"About the best of the series... perhaps since the very first." -- Raymond Chandler

Private investigators Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, stars of five of Hard Case Crime's most popular novels, return to solve their toughest case yet.

Hired to prevent a socialite from poisoning her husband, Donald Lam dreams up an ingenious scheme involving a carton of anchovy paste and a fictitious national ad campaign. But when the whole thing backfires spectacularly and bodies, witnesses, and suspects start piling up, it'll take every ounce of Donald's brainpower and Bertha's bruising ruthlessness to keep the police at bay - and a killer from getting away with murder.

Review Quotes

"Another ebullient dash down Memory Lane with Los Angeles private eyes Bertha Cool and Donald Lam...great fun."​ ​-Kirkus​ Reviews​

"[T]ightly written, fast-moving, funny in the right places, and entertaining from page one right to the end."
- Deadly Pleasures Magazine

About the Author

One of the best-selling authors of all time, Erle Stanley Gardner's greatest creations include crusading attorney Perry Mason (star of more than eighty novels, a TV series and TV movies) and the hardboiled detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, who appeared in more than two dozen adventures. An attorney himself, Gardner also founded the Court of Last Resort, a group that investigated criminal cases they believed had ended in wrong convictions.