The Case of the Hesitant Hostess -- Erle Stanley Gardner

This novel from 1953 is different in several respects from the usual Perry Mason yarn. For one thing, the trial in which Mason is involved is already underway when the book begins. For another, he’s defending a client on an armed robbery charge, rather than trying to save him from a murder rap. And finally, he’s working on this case pro bono, having had it assigned to him by the judge.

If you’ve read very much by Erle Stanley Gardner, though, you know that things won’t stay that simple. Mason’s client is charged with yanking open the door of a car stopped at a red light and robbing the couple in the car at gunpoint. But before you know it, the case involves a chain of successful nightclubs, beautiful hostesses who are little better than prostitutes, a model who winds up with a garrotte around her neck, a shady gambling ring, possibly crooked cops, a cutthroat assistant district attorney and a flying trip to Las Vegas, where, the gossip mavens report, the noted lawyer Perry Mason has eloped with his beautiful secretary Della Street.

This book barely pauses to take a breath. As usual, Gardner packs a lot of story into a fairly short amount of time. There are two long, very effective courtroom scenes, and Mason races around and even throws a punch or two in some hardboiled action reminscent of the early novels in the series. In the end, the plot is relatively easy to figure out, but Gardner is having so much fun it doesn’t matter. THE CASE OF THE HESITANT HOSTESS is one of the best Perry Mason novels I’ve read, and a really good way to wrap up my reading for the year.

The Case of the Daring Decoy -- Erle Stanley Gardner

THE CASE OF THE DARING DECOY is from 1957, still a good period in the Perry Mason series, if not as consistently excellent as the more hardboiled Thirties and Forties. By this time many of the books opened not with Mason, as the earlier ones do, but with the person who will turn out to be the client later on. That’s the case here, as the first chapter of the book features Jerry Conway, the young, dynamic president of an oil exploration company who’s facing the fight of his life as a former associate wages a proxy battle to take over the company. Conway is contacted by a mysterious woman who claims to have information that will be valuable to him in his struggle, but she says she’ll turn it over to him only after he jumps through some hoops to make sure neither of them is being followed. Their rendezvous is supposed to take place in a hotel room, but when Conway gets there he finds a different woman, wearing only her underwear and brandishing a revolver. Conway winds up with the revolver (you knew that was going to happen) and a murder charge hanging over his head (equally inevitable). When you’re in a situation like that, who you gonna call? Perry Mason, of course.

From there it’s the usual dizzying mix of interrogations, banter, genuine clues, and red herrings. Is there only one gun involved in the case, or two? What about the peas in the room service meal? Why did the half-naked, gun-toting babe have a mud pack on her face? There’s a little more comedy than usual in this one, with some snappy, funny lines from various characters, even the usually dour Mason, and there’s even a touch of romance. The plot makes sense (I think), and for once I even spotted some of the clues and figured out ahead of time who the real killer was, something that hardly ever happens when I read a book by Erle Stanley Gardner. I didn’t have all the details worked out, but I had the right suspect pegged.

I thought this book was great fun, and my only real complaint about it is the rather sedate cover of the paperback edition. I mean, really, a beautiful woman in her underwear waving a gun around is the perfect image for a book like this, isn’t it? Even with a mud pack? (Okay, you could lose the mud pack on the cover and call it dramatic license . . . )

The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary -- Erle Stanley Gardner

This Perry Mason novel was originally published in 1955, an era during which Gardner’s work was still consistently good, although as far as I’m concerned his best books were published during the Thirties and Forties. The edition pictured is the first paperback, from February 1958. I have no idea why there was a three-year gap between the William Morrow hardback and the Cardinal paperback.

As for the story itself, it starts off in a typically intriguing Gardner fashion: Perry Mason receives a phone call at his office from a young woman who wants to hire him. It seems that she lives in a trailer, the small kind that can be pulled behind a car, and while she was out sunbathing -- nude, of course -- somebody stole the car and trailer, literally driving off with her home. She wants to hire Mason to bring her some clothes and find out who stole the trailer.

Well, you know there has to be a lot more to it than that in an Erle Stanley Gardner book, and of course, there is. It turns out the young woman is the daughter of a man who is serving time in prison for masterminding an armored car robbery, and wouldn’t you know it, the nearly four hundred thousand dollars in loot that was stolen in that robbery has never been found. The daughter is convinced that her father is really innocent and wants Mason to prove it. Meanwhile, various factions are equally convinced that the daughter really knows where the money is hidden. Sure enough, once Perry Mason gets involved in the case, it’s only a matter of hours before there’s a murder, and Mason’s client is arrested and charged with the crime.

I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping up with the plot in this one, something I often have a hard time doing in a Gardner novel. I spotted some clues, recognized some misdirection, and was convinced that I had the solution figured out. Then, with only a few pages left in the book, Gardner throws in a perfectly logical twist that I never saw coming at all. I wound up being about half-right in what I figured, and for a Perry Mason novel, that’s not bad, I suppose.

This book is also interesting because of the trailer angle. Gardner was known for going off to the desert and staying for weeks at a time in a trailer, so he puts his knowledge of such things to good use here, throwing in a few nuggets of information about how such trailers are set up and what they’re worth.
The Mitchell Hooks cover on the paperback edition is okay, but if ever a book was crying out for a McGinnis cover, you’d think that one with a title like THE CASE OF THE SUN BATHER’S DIARY would be it.

The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece -- Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner piles up the complications early on in this Perry Mason novel from 1936, when Mason was still a grinning, wise-cracking tough guy, at least part of the time. In this one we have a millionaire with the bad habit of sleepwalking with a bloody carving knife in his hand; his beautiful, astrology buff niece; a hypochondriac, black-sheep-of-the-family half-brother; a golddigging ex-wife; a crackpot inventor who may be a crook; and assorted other hangers-on and shady characters. Everybody winds up spending the night in the millionaire’s Hollywood mansion, including Perry Mason, and in Gardner’s version of an Agatha Christie/old English house sort of mystery, somebody winds up dead. Mason’s sleepwalking client is charged with the murder, so Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake plunge right in with the usual mix of snappy banter and questionable legal shenanigans to prove the client innocent and uncover the real murderer.

Gardner is in pretty good form in this one. The story zips along really fast, the wisecracks are funny, and there are some nice long courtroom scenes in the final third of the book. I had the murderer pegged pretty early on, which is unusual for me when it comes to Gardner’s books. I sometimes have trouble figuring out what happened even after Mason has explained everything. But I’ve discovered over the years that for books that are so plot-heavy and supposedly light on characterization, it’s not the plots I remember from them. The fun is in the pace and dialogue and the interaction among Mason, Della, and Paul Drake. And, of course, in watching Mason confound the long-suffering Hamilton Burger and Lt. Tragg (or in this case, Sergeant Holcomb, who hadn’t been replaced by Tragg yet). THE CASE OF THE SLEEPWALKER’S NIECE is only an average entry in the series but a perfectly enjoyable way to spend some time.