Detective Donald Lam is hired by a man who needs his alibi to be investigated, and confirmed. He bounces between San Francisco and Los Angeles to do so, but the alibi is fake. (Being from the SF Bay Area, I enjoyed the descriptions of the city and got a big kick out of the fact that the author mentioned Petaluma, a city just eleven miles north of where I live!).

Good detective story with good twists. The mining/stock explanation was a snooze to read. I guess I just didn't understand it, and kind of started skimming those paragraphs when they came up. But the detective stuff was fun and I would be interested in reading other titles in this series! Thanks Hard Case Crime! ( )

A young man hires Los Angeles’s Cool & Lam agency to help him find the two women who can provide him with an alibi for the night of the disappearance of a gangster’s girlfriend. Lam easily wraps up the case. That’s the problem. It’s too easy. Against the client’s wishes—and the wishes of his partner, Bertha Cool, Donald Lam keeps digging. The trail takes him to San Francisco, where he uncovers murder and a money laundering scam. If he wants to stay out of jail, or maybe even just stay alive, he’ll have to get to the bottom of things.

Perry Mason author Erle Stanley Gardner wrote this series under the pseudonym A. A. Fair. It’s an entertaining but otherwise forgettable hardboiled crime novel characteristic of the mid-20th century. ( )

"Top of the Heap" by Erle Stanley Gardner is one of those "Hard Case Crime Series" books, where they reprint a lot of crime noir stuff that's older and out of print, like this one. I love Gardner's "Perry Mason" series and this one was pretty good. It was convoluted and complicated, like all good detective fiction usually is. I really liked the character of Donald Lam. He was interesting, and a man's man without being obnoxious about it. ( )

Donald Lam...the real working half of Cool & Lam Detective Agency.

When Bertha Cool takes on a well heeled client in need of establishing an alibi, she sees dollar signs. For Donald Lam it is just another job, until he finds out the the client's story doesn't make sense. The beautiful girlfriend of a notorious gangster vanishes, a mining scam, an illegal casino, a double homicide...how do these all tie together and relate to the client?

Starting in L.A. and winding up in San Franciso, Lam is on the move as he finds one thing leads to another. There are a lot of twists and turns in this and you need to pay attention.

Erle Stanley Gardner writes under the pen name A.A. Fair for this 29 book series written between 1939 to 1970. Bertha Cool runs the agency with an iron fist...money is the one thing that can soften her up. Donald Lam is the guy who really gets things done, in the style of noir of the 1930s. All the books have this feel and seem to take place in this time.

For me, it was a Goodread. ( )

Det. Donald Lam is hired to locate two women who could verify the whereabouts of a man thought to be involved in the disappearance of well known, San Francisco socialite. Unsatisfied with the outcome coupled with a feeling that his client’s story stinks, Lam lets his instincts take him further down the rabbit hole. Was Lam right to pursue his gut or will he lose everything in the process?

Hardcase had a lot to live up to in providing the reader with an adequate follow up to both [b:Grifter's Game|380569|Grifter's Game|Lawrence Block|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183504844s/380569.jpg|3261476] and [b:Fade To Blonde|137556|Fade To Blonde (Hard Case Crime #2)|Max Phillips|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183504914s/137556.jpg|132580] - but I’m not sure this was the best choice. There were aspects about this that I really liked, most notably Donald Lam himself. His dialogue was snappy and at times, pretty funny. What can I say, I love my detectives to show some backbone as well as having razor sharp wit.

Lam is a smart guy, his decisions and assumptions seem to come out on the right side of things more often than not. He must have one hell of a poker face because he’s an expert in the field of bluffing. He could probably tell you that the sky is green and you’d second guess yourself.

Some of the supporting cast were a little strange - especially Lam’s partner, Brenda. While I understood why she had been upset following a specific event, you’d think that with this being the 22nd installment of the series, she’d be a little more confident with Lam’s skills as a detective.

While I liked it, it didn’t leave me with the same lasting impression that either of the first two books did. However, I think I may be completely hooked on this publisher. ( )