Fish Or Cut Bait: Bertha Cool-Donald Lam Mystery (Pocket Books, 50410)

by A.A. Fair and Erle Stanley Fair, A. A. (pseud. of Gardner

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000I8C534
• Release Date: January 1964
• Publisher: Pocket
• Length: 159 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

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Fish or Cut Bait Jarvis C. Archer, a business executive, visits the agency to hire 24-hour bodyguards for his confidential secretary Marilyn Chelan. She has been getting threatening telephone calls and letters from an anonymous person. Chapter 2 tells how Donald Lam needles the caller to provoke him into talking. Chapter 3 tells how Lam now follows Archer from Marilyn's apartment. Archer made phone calls from a public booth. The next day Lam and Bertha Cool compare notes; something is going on in this case. Marilyn decides she doesn't want protection, and this job is over for Cool & Lam (Chapter 4). Lam creates a cover story for his activity on Rhoda Avenue (Chapter 5). Sergeant Frank Sellers tells Lam to forget everything he may have seen around Rhoda Avenue (Chapter 7). There was a murder there of a woman who ran an escort service, furnishing attractive girls for dates. Lam explains the circumstances to his secretary Elsie Brand (Chapter 8). Complications arise, and Donald Lam again talks to Marilyn Chelan. Is there a connection to Rhoda Avenue (Chapter 10)? Chapter 11 reveals the hidden facts of this case, but Marilyn's connection is unknown. Chapter 12 tells how to fix an identification for a line-up. In Chapter 14 we find out about the hidden scandal. There is a connection to the events in Chapter 1. Eventually an interrogation brings out the hidden facts (which ties in the characters introduced earlier). Cremating a body prevents any test for toxic chemicals (Chapter 18). But the case is cracked when somebody talks (Chapter 19). Arranging sexual liaison for blackmail purposes is an old, old trick for secret services, and others. But the bait doesn't always catch the fish. A perfect plan failed when applied to an imperfect world. Corporate corruption is covered up. One anachronism was the "woman's woolen stocking" used as a murder weapon. [This story echoes some of the events in the "Black Dahlia Avenger" book.] Nixon's 1971 devaluation of the dollar soon made these dollar figures.