Owl’s
Don’t Blink is the sixth mystery Erle Stanley Gardner
published as by A.A. Fair and featuring private eyes Bertha Cool and Donald Lam.
Its original release was as a hardcover by William Morrow & Co. in 1942,
but the edition that caught my eye is a mass market published by Dell
in 1970. An old school photographic cover isn’t my usual bag, but something
about this one works. The artist: Unknown (to me, at least).
The opening paragraph:
“I
was awakened at three o’clock in the morning by the sound of a garbage-pail
cover being kicked across the sidewalk. A moment later, a woman’s voice, harsh
and shrill, shouted, ‘I am not going with you! Do you understand?’”
I didn't read A.A. Fair as much as I devoured Gardner in my teens. I'm glad his novels still hold up for me.
ReplyDeleteI'm the opposite Prashant. I've read more of his A.A. Fair than his Erle Stanley Gardner. A comfort in my life is the idea of all those Perry Mason novels still waiting for me to read them.
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