The Count of 9
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4.4 • 24 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Bertha Cool and Donald Lam investigate their twistiest case yet in this thrilling crime novel from the creator of Perry Mason.
Erle Stanley Gardner was not just the creator of Perry Mason. At the time of his death, he was the best-selling American author of all time, with hundreds of millions of books in print, including the 29 cases of the brash, irresistible detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. Gardner was also one of the most ingenious plot-spinners in the field, coming up with stunning twists and reveals . . . and The Count of 9 is Gardner at his twistiest.
Hired to protect the treasures of a globe-trotting adventurer, Bertha and Donald confront an impossible crime: How could anything be smuggled out of a dinner party—least of all a 6-foot-long blowgun—when the guests were X-rayed coming and going?
But that’s nothing compared to the crime they face next: An impossible murder . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1958, Gardner, the prolific creator of the Perry Mason legal thrillers, published this smooth and easy entry in his Cool and Lam detective series, now reissued with a classic but brand new cover by legendary paperback artist Robert McGinnis. Globe-trotting adventurer Dean Crockett hires Bertha Cool ("a hundred and sixty-five pounds of potatoes in a sack") to do security for a party in his penthouse. But then Crockett is found dead inside a locked room, the apparent victim of darts from a blowgun, and two small jade idols are missing. Bertha mostly sits this one out, bringing in her diminutive partner, Donald Lam, to do the heavy sleuthing. For Lam, think young skinny Frank Sinatra, who was perfectly cast for the role in a 1946 radio adaptation of 1940's Turn on the Heat. As usual, the little gumshoe gets the snot pounded out of him by towering thugs (think Ernest Borgnine). Lam has his brain to rely on, however, and comes up with solutions to the locked-room and other puzzles. Undemanding crime readers will be content.
