Because it is old world, it lacks the pace and depth of details that we usually find in the novellas we read today. The book unfurls at a rather sluggish pace imho, although it tries to spice it up with a punch and a murder.

It tries to live up to the expectations of a generic crime novella with a mysterious Dr.Smith, beautiful ladies, a wife long lost, a paramour, revenge, money, politics and you know the rest of the list. Despite all that it has it lacks something to really bind it all together really well. It seems a little half baked. 

The crime busting duo of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam did have the potential to be more, because when you have an Italian lady going towards the right of the number line both in terms of age and weight, and a cool sharp headed young chap as a pair, you can really conjure up remarkable things with this odd couple. But unfortunately I couldn't find any of this magic. It was rather flat in spite of Bertha Cool having a sassy demenour. 

Frankly, I had more expectations from this one.

Now there is a little story behind this book. The first book that was written by the author of this novella  Erle  Stanley Gardner, did not see the light of the day just because his publisher rejected it. So, he wrote another Bertha Cool and Donald Lam concoction, that is Turn on The Heat, to replace it and Bloomsbury has brought it forth to you once again in renewed form. So if vintage mystery is what you dig, then you can surely give this one a chance. 

Note : I had received the review copy of Turn on the Heat from Bloomsbury in exchange of an honest review. 

Title : Turn on the heat

Author : Erle Stanley Gardner

SOC Rating : 2.5/5

Genre : Crime/Thriller/Mystery/Fiction

Publisher : Bloomsbury

Publishing Year : 2017

#Pages : 252

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