Review: The Case of the Terrified Typist - Erle Stanley Gardner

Any time I feel like a reading funk might be coming on, a Perry Mason novel is a sure-fire way of nipping it in the bud. THE CASE OF THE TERRIFIED TYPIST was published originally by William Morrow in 1956 and has been reprinted in paperback many times since then, like most of the Perry Mason novels. It’s currently available in e-book and paperback editions from Amazon.

In this one, Mason needs to hire a temporary typist to type up a legal brief in a hurry. His secretary Della Street calls the temp agency and tells them to send a girl right over. So, when a young woman shows up at Mason’s office a short time later, everybody assumes she’s the typist. She’s actually really good at it, too. But the reader is going to figure out right away that she’s not really the one sent by the temp agency, and she’s actually there because she’s mixed up in a complicated criminal conspiracy involving smuggled diamonds, an apparent suicide, a lobotomized mental patient, several beautiful women, and an alleged murder even though the victim’s body has been lost at sea.

If you like the courtroom scenes in the Perry Mason novels—and who doesn’t?—this novel is a veritable feast. Except for a few short interludes, the entire second half of the book is a series of one crackling courtroom scene after another as Mason, with the help of Della Street and private detective Paul Drake, untangles the whole thing and exposes the real killer.

I’m not sure Erle Stanley Gardner nails down the plot quite as well as he usually does. There’s at least one hole that’s not really resolved. But Gardner does spring a surprise that’s never occurred in the series up to this point, then neatly uses it to turn everything on its head. Anyway, I’ve long since reached the point where I stopped reading these books for the plots. The plots are just an excuse to watch Mason at work and enjoy the fast-paced prose and the occasional bursts of humor. Plus the friendship between Perry, Della, and Paul is one of the most appealing in fiction. THE CASE OF THE TERRIFIED TYPIST isn’t one of the best Perry Mason novels, but did I race right through it and have a very good time reading it? You bet I did.

Review: The Case of the Lame Canary - Erle Stanley Gardner

THE CASE OF THE LAME CANARY is the 11^th novel in the Perry Mason series, published in hardcover by William Morrow in 1937 and reprinted many times in paperback since then. It starts off, as so many of the novels do, with something odd catching Perry Mason’s interest. A beautiful young woman carrying a canary in a cage visits Mason’s office and tries to hire him to represent her sister in a divorce action. The sister’s husband, you see, is kind of a shady character and has embezzled quite a bit of money from his wife. He’s also threatened to kill her, and that’s why the wife’s sister has the canary. She’s afraid her jerk of a brother-in-law might hurt it. Mason first refuses to take the case. He doesn’t do divorce work, he states flatly. But then he notices that the canary has a sore foot, or claw or talon or whatever you call it, and that intrigues him enough to make him agree to look into the matter.

By now you’re thinking the same thing I was: there’s a lot more to this story than what Mason’s potential client is telling him. Somebody’s going to wind up being murdered, and that canary will turn out to be important. That’s exactly what happens, of course, and we’d all be disappointed if it didn’t. Things get very complicated before the end, as they always do in a novel by Erle Stanley Gardner, but the whole thing revolves around a car wreck, multiple impersonations, a flying trip to Reno, and two, count ‘em, two inquests instead of an actual trial scene.

Since this is one of the novels from the Thirties, Mason is still more hardboiled than he would be in later decades and actually punches a guy and knocks him down. Paul Drake has some pretty funny banter in places, and the whole Perry/Della/Paul dynamic is in good form. Della gets a little tiresome with her constantly badgering Mason to leave the murders behind and take an around-the-world cruise with her, but she also comes through when Mason needs her to pull a stunt that could land her in trouble with the law.

I actually spotted the vital clue and figured out who the killer was pretty early on, which is rare for me when it comes to reading this series. I never figured out the motivation behind everything, though, and I have to admit, the clues were right there in plain sight. Still, I was proud of myself for knowing who the killer was. After that revelation, in an annoying final chapter that could have been left off the book, Gardner makes a rare misstep. This is the book where Mason proposes to Della Street, and it’s no gimmick to trap a killer, it’s the real thing. Thankfully, she turns him down. But even so, none of that rang true to me where these characters are concerned. It’s not enough of a problem to ruin the book or anything like that, but I wish he hadn’t done it.

All that said, I enjoyed THE CASE OF THE LAME CANARY. I’ve been reading this series for 60 years now, and I’ve never read one I didn’t enjoy. I expect to continue reading one now and then for as long as I’m around.

The Case of the Caretaker's Cat - Erle Stanley Gardner

I don’t recall which Perry Mason novel was the first in the series I read, but there’s a good chance it was in one of the short Pocket Books editions with Robert McGinnis covers, since they were all over during the early Sixties when I discovered Erle Stanley Gardner’s work. (The first thing I read by him was one of the Donald Lam/Bertha Cool books, but that’s neither here nor there—although I love that series, too.)

Anyway, I’ve been reading Perry Mason novels off and on for nearly 60 years now, and I always enjoy them. I don’t always remember whether I’ve read one or not since the plots tend not to stick with me, but I’m reasonably sure I hadn’t read THE CASE OF THE CARETAKER’S CAT until now, in the 27^th printing from November 1962. That’s my copy in the scan.

Originally published by William Morrow in 1935, this is the seventh novel in the series. It opens with Perry Mason deciding to take on a case where he’ll be representing a cat. You see, a wealthy man has died and left a will insuring that the caretaker of his estate will always have a job, but the caretaker has a cat and the heirs are demanding that he get rid of it. The caretaker hires Mason to prevent that from happening.

But of course, as it turns out there’s a lot more to it than that. There are multiple murders, a hurry-up marriage, a phony honeymoon, a fortune in missing diamonds, a lengthy courtroom scene in which Mason sorts everything out and exposes the real killer in highly entertaining fashion, and a final twist which (he said modestly) I figured out as soon as Gardner laid the groundwork for it. Trust me, figuring out anything ahead of time in an Erle Stanley Gardner novel is a rarity for me. But just as with the Mike Shayne novels, I enjoy knowing that Mason is three steps ahead of everybody else in the book and that far out in front of me, too.

I’m sure some people read the Perry Mason books for the plots. I read them to watch Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake interact with each other. By now they’re like very old friends to me and I thoroughly enjoy watching them at work. One thing I didn’t realize when reading Mason novels as a kid was how funny many of them are. They’re full of colorful, eccentric characters and great banter and some very dry humor here and there.

Mason also says something in this one that strikes me as important: He declares that he only practices law as a sideline. His real profession is that of adventurer. I think that really sums up the appeal of this series, especially the books from the Thirties and Forties where Mason has a slightly rougher edge. He’s always pushing the boundaries to protect his clients, but also—and equally important to him—to have fun.

And by doing that, Gardner makes sure that the reader has fun, too. I certainly do. THE CASE OF THE CARETAKER’S CAT is one of the best Perry Mason novels I’ve read. Highly recommended.

The Case of the Buried Clock - Erle Stanley Gardner

As I’ve mentioned before, the short Pocket Books editions with Robert McGinnis covers are the classic Perry Mason editions as far as I’m concerned. They’re the ones I saw on spinner racks and in used bookstores when I was growing up in the Sixties. (I’m also fond of the Triangle Books cheap hardback reprints published by Blakiston, many of which I checked out from our local library, but that’s probably the subject of another post.)

This Mason novel was published originally by William Morrow in 1943. The copy I read, which is the scan above, is the ninth Pocket Books printing from November 1962. So it’s sixty years old this month and in great shape for its age, square and uncreased and with only lightly tanned pages. But is it any good, you ask? Well, it’s a Perry Mason novel. Of course it’s enjoyable . . . but with a few reservations.

Most of the Mason novels start with a potential client showing up at Perry’s office and being announced by Della Street. This is one of the rare entries where Erle Stanley Gardner introduces most of the major characters and sets up the situation before Perry, Della, and Paul Drake ever appear. We have a mountain cabin belonging to a wealthy banker, the banker’s beautiful unmarried daughter, the banker’s other, somewhat less attractive daughter who’s married to a cad and a bounder, a stalwart GI who’s been wounded in action, discharged, and sent home to recuperate, a beautiful widow who runs a nearby ranch, an artist/wildlife photographer (who seems perfectly healthy; why isn’t he off fighting in the war?), yet another beautiful young woman and her brother, an abandoned mine, and the buried clock of the title, which is set for the wrong time.

Naturally, there’s a murder at the cabin, Perry is hired to defend the person put on trial for the crime, and the final third of the novel is a series of courtroom scenes with Perry sparring against a new opponent, an assistant district attorney named McNair, before the prosecution brings in poor old Hamilton Burger to deliver the knockout punch and finally convict one of Perry’s clients. Yeah, right.

The plot is the usual complicated stew of motives and deceptions, and the large cast of characters (some of whom are just names and never actually appear in the book) make the story hard to follow at times. The clock seems to be forgotten for most of the book before it plays a major part at the end, and the killer’s motive really seems to come from farther out in left field than usual in these books. Because of that, I can’t put THE CASE OF THE BURIED CLOCK in the top rank of Perry Mason novels, but it’s still quite a bit of fun to read anyway. At this point in the series, Perry is farther away from his pulp roots, but he’s still a little rough around the edges and doesn’t hesitate to bend the law on behalf of his client. And the banter between Perry, Della, and Paul is top-notch and pretty funny in places. Gardner’s writing seems a little more descriptive at times, too, and he does a fine job with the setting. If you’ve never read a Perry Mason novel before, this probably wouldn’t be a great one to start with. If you’re a long-time fan like me, you’ll probably find enough to like to make reading it worthwhile.

The Case of the Silent Partner - Erle Stanley Gardner

(This post originally appeared on January 17, 2007. I've added a cover gallery of various editions below. I hope this is the last rerun for a while.)

What's a good antidote to a ponderous, over-written book like the one I was talking about in my previous post? How about a Perry Mason novel from 1940, when Mason still wore a fedora, smoked cigarettes, and didn't mind mixing it up with some tough guys if he had to? (Although there's not any real hardboiled action in this one, it does crop up from time to time in the Mason novels from this era.) Not surprisingly, in this book you get a fast pace, an incredibly complex plot, and seldom a wasted word. From the first book, THE CASE OF THE VELVET CLAWS, in 1933 until about the mid-Fifties, the Mason series is consistently entertaining, at least to me.

However, THE CASE OF THE SILENT PARTNER isn't really in the top rank of Perry Mason novels. The motivating action -- the battle for control over a chain of flower shops -- isn't particularly compelling, and Gardner's writing seems a little less crisp than usual. I nearly always get confused when I'm reading a novel by Gardner because the plots are so complicated, and that was true here, too. I did spot a fairly important clue early on that Gardner kept up his sleeve until near the end of the book. There's no big courtroom scene at the end. I know they're hokey, but I like them anyway. The book is notable for being the novel that introduced the character of Lieutenant Tragg. Up to this point in the series Mason's chief antagonist on the police force had been Sergeant Holcomb of the Homicide squad. Paul Drake is mentioned but never appears on screen, and there's no Hamilton Burger at all.

Despite the flaws, I enjoyed the book, and the solution to the murder is pretty darned clever. Worth a look if you're a Perry Mason fan and haven't read this one yet, but I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for the series.

Robert McGinnis art?

Dust jacket from the first edition hardback

Dust jacket from the Triangle Books reprint

An earlier Pocket Books edition

Classic Mysteries: The Case of the Lonely Heiress - Erle Stanley Gardner

As I said about the Jim Hatfield novels a couple of weeks ago, I’ve never read a Perry Mason that didn’t at least entertain me. In the mood for a Mason recently, I picked up THE CASE OF THE LONELY HEIRESS from 1948 and had a grand time reading it.

This one opens with a potential client visiting Mason’s office, as so many of the books do. He’s the publisher of a somewhat shady lonely hearts magazine full of classified ads from people seeking penpals and romance, as well as having some confession-magazine-style stories in it written under house-names by the publisher himself. He’s concerned about one of the ads, since it claims to be from a young heiress looking for a man who’s not a fortune-hunter. He suspects the woman is up to no good, and he doesn’t want to be dragged into whatever her scheme is, so he hires Mason to represent his interests and get to the bottom of it.

Of course, as is usual with Perry Mason, what the novel seems to be about at first doesn’t turn out to be what’s actually going on, as Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake, and one of Drake’s operatives quickly find out when they investigate. Not surprisingly, the real mystery winds up involving the fortune the heiress is going to inherit, a last-minute will, a jealous wife, and a nude nurse who’s both blackjacked and stabbed. Mason defends the person charged with the nurse’s murder, so we get some of those always entertaining courtroom scenes full of rapid-fire dialogue and legal wrangling, although there aren’t as many of them as in some of the books. I guess Hamilton Burger was busy, because Mason’s opponent this time is an assistant DA named James Hanover. I have to say, Hanover is pretty bland compared to Burger’s usual bluster and clueless pomposity.

That’s about the only drawback in THE CASE OF THE LONELY HEIRESS, which I think is one of the better Perry Mason novels I’ve read. For one thing, it may be the funniest Perry Mason novel I’ve come across, with an overall tone that approaches screwball at times. Gardner has great fun writing his version of a confession-mag yarn when he has Mason read excerpts from the original client’s magazine. Mason and Della have a run-in with a uniformed cop that’s hilarious, especially in its outcome. The jealous wife who henpecks her hapless husband is a stereotype, but Gardner manages to make those interchanges funny. Now, admittedly, there’s a lot in this novel that might be either puzzling or offensive to younger readers today, but luckily, I’m old and don’t care. I had a great time reading this one, and if you’re a Perry Mason fan and haven’t gotten around to it yet, I recommend it.

Forgotten Books: The Case of the Glamorous Ghost - Erle Stanley Gardner

Most of the Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner have been reprinted numerous times, some by several different publishers, and there are many, many cover variations. However, for me the most iconic editions are the ones published by Pocket Books during the late Fifties and early Sixties in the short paperback format, often with covers by Robert McGinnis. Those and the cheap hardback reprints from the Forties published by Triangle Books were my introduction to Perry Mason.

THE CASE OF THE GLAMOROUS GHOST, published in hardcover by William Morrow in 1955 and reprinted by Pocket as part of its Cardinal line in 1957, doesn’t have a McGinnis cover, but the one on this edition by Charles Binger isn’t bad. (That’s my copy in the scan.) It’s also, mostly, a very good novel.

It opens with Della Street, Mason’s secretary, handing him a newspaper containing a story about a beautiful young woman who caused havoc in the local lover’s lane by appearing almost nude, in some sort of diaphonous get-up, and distracting the couples parked there from their necking. I’m not sure how ghostly that is, but we can allow Gardner that stretch for the sake of a good title. Not surprisingly, Mason winds up representing the young woman, who claims she has amnesia when she’s picked up by the cops for disturbing the peace.

In no time at all, of course, the case becomes a lot more complicated, involving a hurry-up marriage in Yuma, Arizona (or was there actually a marriage?), jealous girlfriends, the international jewel trade, and a dead body found in the vicinity of the same lover’s lane where the beautiful “ghost” was cavorting. Mason’s memory-impaired client quickly goes from being charged with disturbing the peace to being on trial for murder. In fact, the entire second half of the book is taken up with the trial, in courtroom scene after courtroom scene, which is a good thing because nobody ever did a better job of writing those than Erle Stanley Gardner. They really kept me turning the pages.

My only real quibble is that while I’m used to complicated plots in a Gardner novel, this one becomes ludicrously so with a lot of elements hauled in late from left field. It all makes sense, but Mason seems to pull a lot of the solution out of thin air.

However, I realized a long time ago that the actual appeal of the Perry Mason novels doesn’t lie in the plots, although some of them are more interesting and well-constructed than others. What I really enjoy about this series is the friendship and banter between Perry, Della, and Paul Drake, and seeing Hamilton Burger get his courtroom comeuppance yet again. Burger is in fine form in this one. He accuses Mason of being on a fishing expedition, blusters about his grandstanding, and at one point even says, “Your Honor, counsel is trying to turn this court room into a carnival sideshow!” Classic stuff that puts a grin on my face every time. Some readers might call it formulaic, but it’s exactly what I want from a Perry Mason novel, and THE CASE OF THE GLAMOROUS GHOST does a good job of delivering the goods. I’ve been reading Gardner for more than fifty years now (I actually started with one of his Donald Lam/Bertha Cool books) and don’t intend to stop any time soon.

Forgotten Books: The Case of the Singing Skirt - Erle Stanley Gardner

I read one of Erle Stanley Gardner’s Doug Selby books a while back, and that put me in the mood to read one of his Perry Mason novels. Now, I’m on record as claiming that the Donald Lam/Bertha Cool books are his best series, but I really enjoy the Perry Mason novels, too. So I picked up THE CASE OF THE SINGING SKIRT, originally published in 1959.

As usual, the plot is incredibly complicated and almost impossible to summarize coherently, so I won’t even try. I’ll just say it involves a beautiful singer/cigarette girl, a small town run by crooked gambling interests (complete with a corrupt chief of police—shades of countless Gold Medals from the Fifties), a runaway yacht, adultery, multiple identical revolvers (one of which is a murder weapon . . . maybe), and several tricky legal points, including one that may wind up with Perry Mason being an accessory after the fact to murder!

The actual murder doesn’t show up until almost halfway through the book, and the entire second half of the novel consists of a series of those courtroom scenes Gardner was so good at. Nobody was ever better at that rapid-fire examination and cross-examination stuff. Does the solution of the crime come out of left field? Well, short left field, just out of the shortstop’s reach, maybe. I had a pretty good idea who the real killer was and had some of the details figured out, but not all of them, by any means.

All the usual suspects are on hand, and Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake are in fine form, as are Lieutenant Tragg and poor old Hamilton Burger. There’s some nice humor here and there, as well as a few good hardboiled scenes with the gamblers and gangsters involved with the plot.

No doubt the Perry Mason books are just comfort reads for somebody like me who’s been enjoying them for more than fifty years. But THE CASE OF THE SINGING SKIRT strikes me as one of the better ones from the late Fifties era. I had a great time reading it.

(That’s my copy in the scan. The Perry Mason novels have been reprinted many, many times, but my favorites are those small-size Pocket Books editions with the Robert McGinnis covers. Those are the ones I was buying and reading back in the Sixties . . . although the first Masons I read were library books checked out from the bookmobile that came out to our little town every Saturday morning.)

Forgotten Books: The Case of the Hesitant Hostess - Erle Stanley Gardner

(This post originally appeared in slightly different form on December 31, 2007. I'll probably be in rerun mode for the next few weeks, as most of my time is going to be taken up with research reading for a couple of projects, but I'll make them posts from the early days of the blog in the hope that they'll be new to some of you.)

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.