Whispering sands

by Erle Stanley Gardner

One of the best series Erle Stanley Gardner wrote was the quasi-Western series collectively known as “The Whispering Sands” series for Argosy Magazine between 1930-1934. Most of these stories have been collected in two volumes:Whispering Sands: Stories of Gold Fever and the Western Desert (1981) and Pay Dirt and Other Whispering Sands Stories of Gold Fever and The Western Desert (Morrow, 1983). Of the eighteen stories collected (out of the twenty-one), all but two featuring Bob Zane, a knowledgeable desert prospector, an amalgamation of the author’s own personality and the type of man Gardner knew from his travels. These tales might be seen as Westerns by some readers but as the books’ over-long titles state they are actually “Stories of Gold Fever and the Western Desert”. Which isn’t to say “The Whispering Sands” stories wouldn’t appeal to Western fans, but that Gardner has mixed a wonderful blend of the Western, Mystery and Adventure genres into these stories. The fiction most simila