Some Women Won't Wait [Hardcover]

A.A. Fair (Author), Erle Stanley Gardner (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: William Morrow (June 1953)
• ISBN-10: 9997511824
• ISBN-13: 978-9997511829
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,796,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The police are ahead of Donald this time, November 26, 2004

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Some Women Won't Wait (Hardcover)

An old and rheumatic man, (Bicknell) comes to the Cool & Lam agency seeking help for a young woman Mira Woolford) who is being blackmailed. Mira had married his partner and when the partner died, she inherited half of his substantial estate. His death was sudden, so there is some suspicion as to the cause. Mira is in Hawaii, so Bicknell hires Bertha and Donald to travel with him to the islands on a deluxe cruise ship.

Once they arrive in Hawaii, Donald manages to loosen Bertha up, getting her to wear Hawaiian dresses and even a bathing suit. Donald manages to befriend Mira and Norma, her friend with similar ambitions. There is more than one person attempting to blackmail Mira, and one of them gets a bullet between the eyes. Bertha and Bicknell discover the body in the victim's house and enter the crime scene and remove some evidence. This gets them in trouble and Donald manages to fix some of the damage. The suspicion falls on Mira, and Donald begins working to establish her innocence.

The murderer is exposed, largely due to police work. This book is different from most of the other Bertha Cool/Donald Lam books, in that the police are not nitwits. While it appears that Donald is a step ahead of the law, he is not. They are abreast of his every move and identify the killer before Donald does. I enjoyed this plot device, as the recurrent theme of heavy handed, somewhat dull-witted police grows stale after it is used several times. This is one of the better Bertha Cool/Donald Lam mysteries.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No surprises in the plot, a typical Fair (a. k. a. Gardner) murder mystery, June 26, 2008

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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A man named Bicknell hires the firm of Cool & Lam to protect a widow named Mira Woodford and her friend Norma. Mira is a young woman who was married to Bicknell's business partner Ezra until his death. There was a significant difference in their ages and Mira will inherit a great deal as a consequence of Ezra's death. Bicknell wants to hire a woman, namely Bertha Cool, to make friends with Mira and Norma on a cruise ship to Hawaii, but Bertha wants Donald to go along. However, Donald does not want to go, so Bertha uses deceitful tactics to get Donald on the ship, locking him in a room until the ship has left port.

The cruise to Hawaii is one where the people get to know each other, other than that it is uneventful. After a short time in Hawaii, Bertha and Bicknell find a blackmailer named Bastion murdered and the suspicion immediately falls on Mira and Norma. Donald begins falling for the feminine charms of the girls, their being scantily dressed certainly helps them achieve that, and he manages to get them around some of the worst of the problems. Donald runs afoul of another blackmailer, gets beat up and then escapes. With Donald's help, the police manage to unmask the real killer and Donald and Bertha's work is done.

This is typical of Gardner's stories, with the interspersion of elements of feminine exposure and desire in a murder mystery. For example, on page 173 Mira is in the back seat of the car and Donald is driving. Mira says, " If you haven't seen legs before I'm going to shock you." `She pulled her skirt up above her knees and came over to the front seat.' The climactic exposure of the murderer is not all that dramatic, to me, it was clear for some time who the murderer was.

If you are a fan of the Gardner style of writing, then you will enjoy this book. It is sexist, chauvinistic and typical of the style of detective stories of the forties and fifties.