Sat 14 Jan 2023
A PI Mystery Review by Tony Baer: A. A. FAIR – The Knife Slipped.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
A. A. FAIR – The Knife Slipped. Donald Lam & Bertha Cool. Hard Case Crime, paperback, December 2016.
Written in 1939, this was supposed to be the 2nd Cool and Lam book, following The Bigger They Come.
Unfortunately, the publisher nixed it due to Bertha Cool’s tendency to “talk tough, swear, smoke cigarettes, and try to gyp people.†The afterward wonders how different the series would have looked had the publisher allowed Bertha to be as cool as she is here.
Bertha is really quite wonderful in the book. And probably would have been considered a more historically important figure in mystery fiction had the publisher green lighted it.
Donald Lam, Bertha’s operative at B. Cool Detective Agency, is a runt of a disbarred lawyer. He is a complete wimp. Not by inclination but by physique. He’s a 90 pound weakling. And unarmed.
Bertha, on the other hand, is both the brains AND the brawn of the organization. Donald Lam is Bertha’s miniature Archie Goodwin. Anytime Donald finds himself outmatched mentally OR physically, Bertha is there to bail him out. She’s tough. And she punches people. And because she’s a woman, she’s able to gut punch deserving vamps with impunity — and without the PTSD triggering machismo of a Mike Hammer.
In this adventure B. Cool Detectives get hired to track a cheating husband by his flabby wife and her overbearing mother. But after tracking him down, Donald Lam discovers that the cheating hubbie is not only cheating his wife! He’s also the point person in a massive New York State Civil Service Exam fraud scheme. Cheatin’ Hubbie is the point person for cops and firefighters to go to if they want to buy the answers to the civil service exam.
When Donald finds out, he immediately wants to go to the authorities. When Bertha finds out, she wants to ‘cut herself a slice of the cake. She has no interest in turning anybody in. She feels that corruption is as American as apple cake. And that it will always be here. So the only question is: Who gets a slice of the cake. And the answer is: Bertha!
Unfortunately, while trying to cut herself a slice of the cake, “The Knife Slippedâ€. Sadly I don’t recall any knives used as murder weapons — so no double entendre. The metaphorical slipping of the knife while trying to grab a piece of the graft is simply that: a metaphor.
As a result of Bertha’s knife slipping, complications ensue. Naïve, wimpy Donald gets beaten up a bunch, fooled and tricked and beaten up some more, and Bertha comes to save the day.
It’s an entertaining book, if slight. It’s main importance is perhaps in reminding us that the absence of hardboiled female detectives of the 30’s and 40’s may have less to do with writers than with publishers.
January 14th, 2023 at 10:30 pm
I agree about Bertha but wonder if raising her role would have diminished Donald as it feels as if it does a bit here.
Aside from a tale well told and a glimpse of a different track for the series I don’t really think more Bertha and a less capable Donald would have been good for the series in the long run. We have Archie Goodwin we don’t need an imitation goading a fat female sleuth instead of male.
Frankly I can see Bertha regularly charging in and saving Donald’s bacon growing thin after very few books.
It’s nice to see Bertha as a sort of Marie Dressler type once, but I’m too fond of Donald as he is to really dream of her taking the reins in her teeth plot wise.
I’m not entirely sure the editors were wrong on this one as much fun as it was to read it. I think I’m happy with Bertha as a slightly undeveloped character.
January 16th, 2023 at 8:17 pm
Still recovering from a 13 hour trip yesterday from CA to CT, but in spite of delays whenever and wherever they could happen, all is well.
Tony, the line that surprised me in your review was this one:
“Bertha, on the other hand, is both the brains AND the brawn of the organization.”
Bertha may have been the brawny one of the pair, but never in a brawling sense, and Donald was always the brains of the two in all of the ones I’ve read.
If I’m right, that alone would make this one different from all the others.
January 16th, 2023 at 9:12 pm
Steve:
In this one, Donald is Bertha’s protégée. He’s a dupe for a pretty woman and is politically naive. He still believes in true love; in truth, justice, and the American way. Bertha believes in money. And, in her way, in Donald. Like Archie Goodwin, Donald doesn’t know the whole story. He just does as he’s told. Bertha’s pulling all the strings. It’s definitely an outlier and shows an alternative universe in the Cool & Lam metaverse.