Pass the Gravy is one of the better volumes in the Cool and Lam series. This is the story of two missing persons cases that intersect with postcards from an isolated gas station. One of the cases is brought to Lam by a 15 year old worried about her missing uncle who is often off on a bender but must play in the straight and narrow to inherit. The other by a seductive siren of a woman who can make men melt by just taking off her gloves or swiveling a hip. She wants to know what happened to her traveling salesman husband last heard from in the company of a buxom blonde hitchhiker. And she is already trying to figure out whether she is a widow with life insurance proceeds or on her way to a good divorce settlement with lots of alimony.

Lam takes the usual vague clues and finds himself traveling back and forth across the Sierras, finding corpses, using lie detectors, and gambling in Reno.

With all the gamblers, hitchhikers, and teases in this one, it has a bit of a pulpy feel. Probably more smoothly plotted than most in this series, it is an easy fast read. But don't read this looking for gunfights, hoods, and car chases, this is more of a twisted puzzle set out for the solving and somehow Gardner (writing as A A Fair) makes it a compelling read. ( )

One of Gardner's secondary series about the hasndsome Donald Lam and the fat, ugly Bertha Cool. I casn;t stand Bertha, but fortunately Lam makes most of the running in this case, so I like it better than most of the series. A 14 year old girl persuades Lam to find her uncle, who is due to inherit a trust fund if he is alive and unconvicted of major crime, while Cool has contracted with a sultry brunette to find her husband, a salesman last seen with a "stacked" blonde hitchhiker --the wife would apparently be equally happy to sue him for divorce, if alive, or collect his insurance, if dead. Lam learns the salesman gave a ride to the uncle (a binge drinker broke from a spree and hitchhiking) and picked up the blonde about the same time, so the two cases merge.
Incidentally, the cover of this pb version shows a brunette hitchhiker instead of a blonde. Possibly the artist confused the two women in the case. ( )