Monday, December 30, 2013

Amazon stumped in theft of Bill Crider meme: the back cover of TRIALS OF O'BRIEN by Robert L. Fish







If you bring up the Amazon page for this tie-in to the mid-'60s Peter Falk series (which had the ratings misfortune, in its only season, to be slotted against established fogey fave The Lawrence Welk Show and insurgent Get Smart!), the algorithm is flummoxed. Believe or not. (No doubt not uniquely, but I'm amused by the phrasing below.)

Believe it or not we don't have any recommendations for you related to
Trials of O'Brien
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5 comments:

mybillcrider said...

I love to stump Amazon.

Todd Mason said...

I would think that Fish's name would bring up a long string of BULLITT/MUTE WITNESS editions and products, at least.

Sergio (Tipping My Fedora) said...

I do use Amazon in desperation, but I do hate 'em - thanks for that Todd!

J F Norris said...

When I'm not signed in I do not see that odd phrase. Anywhere. When I am signed in I have, of course, a slew of recommendations none of which are related to Robert L Fish, Peter Falk or the content of the book. Instead, they are based on what I have purchased in the past.

Todd Mason said...

Perhaps the late Randy Johnson's comment on the Amazon entry eventually helped, but I suspect your result, J. F., was another version of Giving Up...in early 2014, Randy posted:

Randy Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars Pre- Columbo Falk
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2014
Verified Purchase

I was completely unfamiliar with this series. Understandable. I was fifteen at the time it aired and mostly watched and read science fiction. It only ran for one season and I read elsewhere that Peter Falk said he thought more of it than he did his signature show Columbo.

Daniel J. O'Brien is a lawyer that likes to play the horses and throw the dice, gamble in general, and is not very successful at any of them. He owes everybody, has an ex-wife that constantly carps about late alimony in the form of bounced checks, and a secretary he's always borrowing money from and is behind on her salary. Fortunately for him, he seems to bring out the soft spot in women and stays on their good side. Just barely.

O'Brien gets unwittingly involved in a scheme by an old client of his. Benny Kalen is a three time loser. That he only got a few years on his last conviction instead of a dozen makes no impression. O'Brien should have got him off, therefore he didn't deserve to get paid.

O'Brien gets suckered by Benny's wife into being at a bar late one night while Benny and a confederate are pulling a stick-up job on a finance company that had just opened next door.

Thinks go wrong and there's a dead body. Benny;s parole officer had warned O'Brien that he heard his name mentioned and believes he's in on the job.

Our lawyer is forced to defend his former client, who swears the man was already dead and the safe broken into when he entered the office, in order to clear his name.

Robert L. Fish wrote this one and is the reason I gave it a try. His novel Mute Witness became the Steve McQueen movie Bullit.

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