At the time of his death in 1970, Erle Stanley Gardner was the best-selling American author of all time. This was due in large part to his Perry Mason novels, which fueled a long-running television series as well as a number of made-for-TV movies, which in turn renewed interest in the books, and so on. In fact, HBO recently wrapped up the first season of “Perry Mason,” which is (loosely) based on the novels. Gardner was a workhorse whose quantity often matched the quality of his output. At times he would type until his fingers bled, at which point he would stop working long enough to bandage up the injured member and gamely plunge right into his latest project.

Perry Mason was not Gardner’s only creation. He also wrote a well-known series under the pseudonym “A. A. Fair” involving a private investigation agency run by tightfisted owner Bertha Cool and independent-minded investigator Donald Lam. The Cool & Lam books were extremely popular in their own right. Hard Case Crime has released four of the many novels from this series over the past several years and is ending the reprint project with a fifth entry, SHILLS CAN’T CASH CHIPS. It is among the best of the lot and more than worth your time and money.

"[SHILLS CAN’T CASH CHIPS] is a sterling example of how the job of writing private-eye fiction is properly performed by a master of the genre."

Cool and Lam are polar opposites. Cool can squeeze a nickel until the buffalo chokes, while Lam is more concerned with solving whatever case he has been assigned to work on and dancing as close to (and beyond) the edge of legalities while doing so. He is a quietly lovable rogue, a hybrid of Mike Hammer without the fisticuffs and Perry Mason without the ethics.

As the book opens, Cool is worried about the firm’s reputation and is hoping to attract a higher class of client. So when an insurance company approaches the agency for an investigation, the overture seems like the answer to his prayers, even if it hardly stirs Lam’s blood. It’s a basic accident case. The insured is accused of rear-ending a young woman whose car was stopped in traffic, and she has filed a claim for damages as the result of a soft-tissue injury known as “whiplash.” The gentleman readily admits fault, so the only issue is the severity of the injury and how much money will be needed to resolve it.

Lam is tasked with shadowing the injured party to document her activities so the insurance company can determine if she is really as limited as she claims to be. She turns out to be an attractive young woman who suddenly goes missing. Lam has to locate her before he can do the job he has been hired to do, and along the way finds himself doing what he does best: engaging in subterfuge to arrive at the truth, or something like that. As those familiar with the series and the genre might expect, there is more involved here than an automobile accident and injuries --- a lot more, actually --- but it appears that Lam might have gotten himself into so much trouble this time that truth will not win out by story’s end.

SHILLS CAN’T CASH CHIPS was initially published in 1963, so don’t expect Lam to solve the case using cell phones and internet databases. That said, it is amazing how well this novel holds up from beginning to end, thanks in large part to Gardner’s plotting, characterization and occasional snappy dialogue. It is much more than a curiosity piece or an acquisition for Hard Case Crime completists. It is a sterling example of how the job of writing private-eye fiction is properly performed by a master of the genre.