Cool and Lam

In the first book about her, The Bigger They Come (1939; British: Lam to the Slaughter), Bertha Cool opened her detective agency after the death of Henry, her husband, in 1936.

In her biography of Gardner, Dorothy B. Hughes wrote, "Erle said over and again that if Donald Lam, 'that cocky little bastard,' had a model, it was Corney"—Thomas Cornwell Jackson, his literary agent.

[2]: 227  Jackson later married actress Gail Patrick, and they formed a partnership with Gardner that created the CBS-TV series Perry Mason.

[4] Turn On the Heat was adapted by Welbourne Kelley for the June 23, 1946, broadcast of The United States Steel Hour on ABC radio.

One feature of interest is that, a few minutes after the start of the program, Erle Stanley Gardner is shown on the set of Perry Mason's office.

It is uncertain whether this pilot was ever broadcast and, if so, whether this segment featuring Gardner would have been included, since it pushed the running time of the program to the 30-minute mark and did not allow for commercials.

First edition dust jacket of The Bigger They Come (1939), the first mystery in the Cool and Lam series