Fri 6 Jan 2023
A. A. FAIR – Bats Fly At Dusk. Bertha Cool & Donald Lam #6. William Morrow, hardcover, 1942. Reprinted many times, including Dell D348, paperback, April 1960; cover art by Bob McGinnis.
I mention this particular paperback edition because it has my signature written inside on the back of the front cover, suggesting that I bought the book new at the time it was published. I assume I read it back then, but since it’s now over 60 years later, you will understand when I say I remembered nothing from any previous reading.
This book also has some significance in a totally different way. At the end of my recent review of All Grass Isn’t Green, I asked somewhat rhetorically whether Bertha Cool ever had any cases she had to tackle on her own. It turns out that the answer was yes, as David Vineyard quickly replied in a comment, and this is one of perhaps two in which Donald Lam is off fighting the war, having recently signed up to join the Navy.
This doesn’t mean he doesn’t take part in the case. When Bertha finds herself over her head in solving it, she fires off telegrams to her new partner in the firm, and he replies with several cogent suggestions, of course by means of collect messages throughout the second half of the book.
The cases begins innocuously enough. Bertha is hired by a blind man who “witnessed†a traffic accident to a girl who had befriended him while selling pencils on the street. He does not know her name and would like to know if she’s OK.
From here things get … complicated, as complicated as an Erle Stanley Gardner/A. A, Fair story ever gets, and that is very. I don’t think Bertha Cool was strong enough as a character to carry a whole novel on her own, but as a puzzle story, the tale itself is certainly top of the line. There are plenty of clues to be scrutinized carefully, and if put together properly, the discerning reader may (!) be able to piece it all together. (That particular statement does not apply to me.)
Even the title is a clue.
But as for Bertha Cool as a solo leading character, I fear she’s too one-dimensional as a living being (her sole motive is her love for money) to be that interesting for as long a time as a full-length novel. Read this one for the puzzle only. It’s a good one.
January 6th, 2023 at 10:59 pm
I never felt the two books with Donald off stage or only showing up at the end really worked beyond Gardner’s obvious skill as a puzzle maker.
It’s a bit like having Della Street and Paul Drake tackle a case on their own, or when Rex Stout gave Inspector Cramer his own case, it just didn’t satisfy (I wasn’t overly fond of Richard Queen taking on a case alone either).
This happens with series writers. Doyle had Holmes try one story without Watson (fairly disastrously for my taste), and Dr. Priestly is offstage for most of several Rhode novels with others doing the work and him just coming along to sort it all out.
No one really wants to read a Mike Hammer novel where Pat Chambers solves the case and gets all the action, or, though there are good books like that, where Michael Shayne shows up late or Anthony Gethryn ties everything up neatly after the fact.
It was the flaw in Ian Fleming’s THE SPY WHO LOVED ME though Fleming did it successfully in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.
In the case of Bertha Cool it felt all too much as if Wolfe and Archie took a vacation and Theodore solved the case.
January 7th, 2023 at 1:32 am
Neither Inspector Cramer’s solo case, nor Inspector Queen’s single one hit me as being special in any way. I know authors get tired of the me old same old, but it just never seems to work out.
OTOH, I wouldn’t mind seeing how well Della and Paul might handle a case on their own.
Yes, yes, I know. Not a good idea.
January 7th, 2023 at 6:50 pm
The better problem with the solo Bertha Cool story was that she was such an abrasive character. Her stories weren’t that pleasant to read. The idea of a Perry Mason story where Paul and Stella solve the mystery on the other hand sounds interesting. Both are pleasant characters with well developed character. It could work.
January 7th, 2023 at 9:32 pm
I have a vision of the story with Paul and Della in my head, they get everything rounded up, all the clues in order, then they can’t quite make the leap of logic the Great Detective requires. They are frustratingly right at the solution but can’t get over the goal line, and the book ends with them and Burger and Tragg all secretly telegraphing Perry begging him to solve the damn thing.
Gardner also kept Doug Selby a bit offstage during one Wartime novel. It didn’t work that well either.
January 7th, 2023 at 9:39 pm
I will give Nicholas Freeling this, after killing off Piet Van der Valk his French wife, Arlette, did a good job of detecting in two books, good enough she ended up a regular in the Henri Castaing books with her new husband often helping Castaing and friends of he and his wife Vera.
That and the promotion of Hemingway in Georgette Heyer’s book developing from Hannayside’s assistant to the main sleuth are among the few exceptions to this rule though are a few good Appleby novels by Michael Innes where the book is quite good even though Sir John has little to do (particularly in some of the playful Buchanesque ‘shockers’).
January 8th, 2023 at 11:01 pm
Both this one Bats Fly at Dusk, and the later Crows Can’t Count are good books. I’ve long recommended them on my site. But have no article or review on them, alas. Need to get to work!
Have tried to read Red Threads, Stout’s solo for Inspector Cramer. It’s awful.
Heimrich was support to the Norths before he got his own series.