Shills Can't Cash Chips

 

Super fun Hard Case Crime from Erle Stanley Gardner, featuring Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. An insurance company hires Cool and Lam to find out if Vivian Deshler really has whiplash. Their client has admitted he hit Miss Deshler's car, but she's disappeared and now they're suspicious. They want Donald to find her and see if he can get some good snaps of her running on the beach in a bathing suit to show she doesn't really have whiplash. 

Tough job, but someone's got to do it. 

Donald goes to the small L.A. suburb where the accident took place and starts poking around. It doesn't take long before he figures out something bigger is going on. Typical Gardner, there are about 10 car accidents on the day in question (I'll never forget that Perry Mason book where 10 different people were in one swimming pool one night--all without running into each other or the owner of the house). It was a super quick read.