The Unwritten A.A. Fair novel (1939)
When Donald Lamb entered his Chinatown office that sultry morning, little did he know that the day had more in store for him than the typical downtown sensory mix of burned pretzels, exhaust fumes and over-applied perfumes. Nor did his cramped, stale and dusty office offer any inclination to contradict the overwhelming sense of dismissal that permeated the scene. With his expired license on the wall, the crumpled hat on the stand, half empty bottle of prohibition resistant scotch and his sixshooter within reach, he was rolling the burned butt of his fifth cigarette of the morning between his fingertips while considering the pro's and cons of either taking another swig, lying down on the dilapidated couch for an -in his eyes well deserved be it self inflicted- post three day binge nap and calling Bertha Cool, his ominously though never actually present partner to ask her why she had good and well set up a client meeting on the morning after poker night, when he was harshly pulled back to reality by a soft be it distinct knock on the door. Without hesitation the door was flung open and back-lit by the flickering hallway lights there stood a dame with a figure as crisp and well rounded as could be found on not even any Broadway stage. With a quizzical look in her eyes and slightly trembling lips she pouted in a sultry voice that had a desperate haunted edge to it, "Mister Lamb, I need help and I hear you're the best." While still taking in this stunning package of physical appearance and ominously brooding locked up sensuality, Lamb slowly put down his cigarette stub...'
"Hey I can't finish my article if you keep texting me" "Then give me 5 words and 30 minutes and I'll write your story" "FINGERTIPS LIPS QUIZZICAL PHYSICAL GOOD". So that's what led to my tribute to Erle Stanley Gardner, who under the pen name A.A. Fair wrote about thirty books about the Cool & Lamb detective agency in the nineteen-thirties and forties, most of which I read when I was a kid... My apologies to Elmore Leonard's ten rules of writing (all ten of them).
