A. A. FAIR -Widows Wear Weeds. PI’s Donald Lam & Bertha Cool #27. William Morrow, hardcover, 1966. Dell, paperback, date?. Reprinted several times since.

   Donald Lam is hired to stop a blackmailer from making more demands, or so he thinks. The blackmail is fake, intended to establish an alibi, but it creates ideas which prove to be fatal for the would-be blackmailer. The murder scene is set up to be embarrassing for Sergeant Sellers, and Donald will have no part of the policeman’s subsequent story.

   There is a definite need for the suspension of disbelief in reading stories such as this. The characters carry on, year after year, almost as if no earlier stories had ever been written. Sellers and Hamilton Burger fight to nail the hides of Lam and Perry Mason to the wall, grudgingly accept defeat (and victory for justice), then go right back at it.

   Disbelief fails in this case. Sellers beats Lam up in his frustration, but they remain on the same quasi-friendly terms as always.Terribly padded, even for the extremely short length.

Rating: **