Cool and Lam - Donald Lam

Donald Lam

Donald Lam is a fictional American detective created by Erle Stanley Gardner under his pen name A. A. Fair. Dorothy Hughes in her biography of Gardner stated that "Erle said over and again that if Donald Lam, "that cocky little bastard," had a model, it was "Corney," as Thomas Cornwell Jackson—Gardner's Hollywood agent and the third husband of Gail Patrick, credited executive producer of the Perry Mason television series, was known. Donald Lam begins his adventures as the employee of Bertha Cool, a stout widow in her 60s who started a detective agency in 1936.

Donald Lam, as a detective, is in stark contrast to the fictional hard-boiled types of his era. Donald is about 5'6", weighs 130 pounds soaking wet, and gets beat up quite frequently. While he does get into several fistfights, he loses all but one — a single fistfight against an insurance investigator in Double or Quits. It should be noted that this was only after taking boxing lessons from a former pug named Louie Hazen in Spill The Jackpot, and studying jujitsu with a master named Hashita in Gold Comes in Bricks.

Donald doesn't carry a gun because, as he says: A) "A gun, a good type of gun such as I would want to carry, costs money", and B) "People are always taking it away from me and beating me up" (meaning the gun). He primary weapon is his brain, not his brawn. In the first book (The Bigger They Come) Donald tells Bertha that when people mistreat him, he uses his ingenuity to figure out a way to get even. He shows that frequently in his cases.

The early history of Donald Lam is murky, though there are several clues in the first novel, The Bigger They Come. He is known to have been a lawyer who had his license to practice law suspended for a year for casually mentioning to a client (who turned out to be a gangster) that he, Donald, had worked out a way to commit a murder in such a way nobody could do anything about it. This was a defect in the law itself, not a sealed room or a traceless poison or a way of vaporizing a body, etc. This theory was put to the test in the same book, when Donald confessed to a murder he didn't commit in order to flush out the real killer. This was the same gimmick that Gardner's pulp character Ed Jenkins used, to stay free in California while a wanted man in seven other states. Fortunately for Donald his theory stood up in court and he was absolved.

After his law license was suspended, Donald was desperate and started answering ads for jobs "that were just a little bit fishy on their face." This led him to Bertha, who hired him; and made money on him ever since. But Bertha also uncovered Donald's past, including his real name, something that was never revealed. Donald apparently considered that a false start to his life. However, his legal training proved invaluable in later books, when he advised lawyers, or his clients, in trials as in the books Beware the Curves and All Grass Isn't Green.

Donald eventually became such a moneymaker for Bertha that she was forced to relent when he put the pressure on her for a full partnership in Double or Quits. When Donald originally asked to be made a partner Bertha turned him down cold. So Donald quit and moved to San Francisco. Bertha would have kept Donald on at a hired man's wages forever, but when he quit she realized that he was her cash cow. Bertha tracked him down and begged him to return in exchange for a partnership. Donald acted uninterested but finally allowed himself to be persuaded after making a couple of insulting additional conditions for his return. Bertha bit her tongue and accepted.

This same book, Double or Quits, is about a case involving double indemnity "in the event of death by accidental means". Donald knew the legal difference between "death by accidental means" and "accidental death", which netted Cool & Lam over $40,000. Solving the case nearly cost Donald his own life, but he did find the proof to get the money, as the murder was held to be a death by accidental means, and the insurance company paid up.

At the conclusion of Owls Don't Blink, set in early 1942, Donald left the agency to enlist in the Navy and fight the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. Two books were written about Bertha alone, during the time Donald was serving his country: Bats Fly at Dusk and Cats Prowl at Night.

In Bats Fly at Dusk, Bertha takes a case brought to her by a blind man. Donald was able to correspond via telegraph, and gave her solid advice, much of which Bertha rejected. However, she finally quit the case at the end, only to find that Donald, on a military pass, flew down and solved it for her. The second, Cats Prowl at Night put Bertha in a case that kept getting worse for her. She eventually came up with a single clue that led her to the solution, but showed she wasn't Donald's equal in such situations. Donald was discharged from the Navy on medical grounds after he contracted Malaria in the South Pacific, at the start of Give 'em the Axe. He returned to Los Angeles and went back to work, although he continued to suffer from frequent malarial attacks for some time.

Like Perry Mason, Donald firmly stood behind his clients, even if they haven't given him all the needed information, or even if he didn't like them personally. He worked according to his own sense of honor and loyalty, giving fair treatment to those who treated him well, and not caring about those who treated him poorly. His unorthodox methods and secretiveness frequently frustrated Bertha, but in the end they paid off in earnings for the agency. Donald often became romantically involved with beautiful women connected with his cases - but only after the case was closed - and by the next novel they had dropped out of his life.

Donald Lam is dedicated to his ideals of justice. It may not always be the legal or moral definition of justice (in Beware the Curves Lam accepts without comment the wrongful conviction of a man for rape, because he knew the man was actually guilty of murder), but to his unique sense of justice, the punishment seems fit the crime, at least in his own opinion.