I was an Erle Stanley Gardener
fan for a long time.
Nineteen years ago, when I (a teenager then) picked my first Perry Mason case, I was fascinated…fascinated
enough to pick twenty more Perry Masons, and then venture into other series
written by ES Gardener. I read ‘Cool & Lam’ series; loved the cliffhangers,
didn’t enjoy the potboilers…then was the district attorney ‘Doug Selby’ series;
one that I didn’t like. Perry Mason remained my favorite hero. Give me one of
his cases any time, and I’ll devour the delicious mystery zestfully.
I kept on
reading Perry Mason for the following five or six years, then I moved on.
Frankly, I don’t remember why I stopped looking for more…distraction more or
less.
More than a
decade passed by without me thinking about revisiting the cool, always
feet-apart, lawyer. Last week, however, I came across an article on court room
fiction, and suddenly my appetite for Perry Masons rekindled acutely…sort of nostalgic
craving.
I left what I
was reading aside and hunted for a couple of the old paperbacks. I picked “The
case of the velvet claws,” the first of the Perry Mason cases (1933), and an
all time favorite for PM’s fans, and “The case of the ice-cold hands” (1962):
one of the latter cases.
I read the two novels on two
consecutive days…and was shocked how my taste (and consequently opinion) has
radically changed.
The Case of the Velvet Claws
Perry Mason is introduced gloriously;
his character is lightly and enigmatically sketched, giving the impression of a
tough, resilient guy, who wouldn’t budge at all, with quite an expressionless
face, except for the occasional glint of the eyes. However, as we’ll see later,
this description is totally inaccurate, as we’ll encounter a more robust, rash, quite
irresponsible character, who archaically adheres to noble, stone-hard values—especially
loyalty to his clients, however corrupt or rotten they are. Meanwhile, he is
quite disrespectful of essentially more important personal and social values: he
lies throughout, makes trades with outlaws, breaks the law, tampers with
evidence, and indulges in disgraceful setups…during which he extorts,
blackmails one character, and bribes another. Erle Stanley Gardener claims his
protagonist is somber, wise, and honest, while he’s portrayed as nothing of
that. He’s an incredibly heterogeneous mishmash. IMHO, ESG hoped to present his
hero as a parable of virtues; however, he made him behave as any typical detective
hero from a 1930s hardboiled movie. If you replaced Perry Mason’s name with
that of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, it’ll fit in smoothly: essentially the
archetypical American private eye, who is clever, brave, craves the truth and
justice, yet flexible enough to be as villainous as his counterparts if need
arises.
In “The case
of the velvet claws,” Perry Mason embarks on the first of his 100+ adventures,
by meeting the typical ESG client: a beautiful, sexy female who pitches lies
all over the place, and throughout the course of the novel. This time, she is
an Eva Griffin, a woman married to an extremely wealthy man, yet dating another
extremely popular politician. A sensationalist magazine gets wind of one of
those dates; they recognize the politician, but yet to recognize the woman. Eva
Griffin recruits Mason to bribe the editor of the magazine, so as to abort any
further investigation and to avoid publishing the story. Perry Mason agrees and
talks the slimy editor, but gets appalled by the incredible high fee. Rash
enough, Perry Mason chases after the secret owner of the tabloid, hunts him
down in his villa, and challenges him in his own office…only to find out later
that he’s the husband of his client, Eva.
Matters grow contentious,
and soon spiral out of control. A couple of days later, the gruesome husband is
killed. The wife-and client-is as bitchy and treacherous as ever. She summons
Perry Mason to her help, and incredulously frames him for the murder.
Descriptions
are vivid, action is breath-taking and the characters are lively (though mostly
fake and hyperbole), and the novel almost works out at 80% of its length.
However, ES
Gardener botched it horrendously in the finale.
*Spoilers* Just
to sanctify his protagonist, he committed the utmost blunder. After a tight
chase, Perry Mason incredibly succeeds in bluffing his bitchy client and forces
her into a rare moment of truth, confessing her murder of her husband…the
thriller was finally coming to a conclusion—but ES Gardener, essentially a
lawyer himself, is not satisfied to stop here. His lawyer hero has just betrayed
his client and delivered her to the gallows. That is the number ‘1’ taboo for
lawyers, and seemingly it just won’t work out for ES Gardener and his real life
entourage, so he commits the improbable. He jumps on an entirely divergent line
and gives his protagonist surreal powers—almost telepathic and prophetic. Out
of the blue, he suspects that the daughter of the housemaid, now engaged to the
heir of the dead man, was already married. He chases her imbecile husband and
in a completely unprofessional (and incredibly unbelievable) way tricks him
into selling his wife’s secret.
Perry Mason
then stages a stupid setup, during which he confronts the housemaid and the
daughter…the clumsy daughter confesses. It so appears that Mason’s client, the
worthless piece of shit, didn’t commit the crime after all. Her bullet had
missed her husband before she’d run away in fear. Then his nephew-and
legitimate heir-came afterwards and killed him, and let the stupid wife think
that she did it. The housemaid and her daughter knew the truth and extorted the
murderous heir to marry the daughter, so as to keep his secret.
Of course,
this is one of the lamest ending ever crafted—especially when you had one that
actually worked. This is the most typical example of an author tampering with
his own work, just to justify his own values. ES Gardener, apparently at the
start of his career, aimed for the combo effect: the aesthetic, along with the
thriller, and morals. However, this was too big a job for one of his stature.
One has to know his strong points and acknowledge his own capacity. It’s no
shame writing just the amazing thriller or the pretty prose; so long it works
fine in the end. Jack of all trades never actually makes it through (though
there are rare examples of course).
ES Gardener
seemingly realized that later in his career. He matured into suspense and
thriller, and of course emphasized his stronger talents, of court room
rhetoric, in subsequent novels.
The Case of the Ice-cold Hands
“The case of
the ice-cold hands”, number 68 of the Perry Mason odyssey, is written by an
altogether different author. Here, older, and busier ES Gardener cuts the crap
and shoots precisely. People read his works for the thrilling, suspenseful, yet
elusive crime; so he gives it direct and formulaic. Fans of the series already
know who Perry Mason is, as well as his fiery competent secretary Della Street,
and his dependable fellow, Paul Drake, the private detective. ESG wastes no
time on introductions or characterization of his heroes, and jumps directly
into the drama.
…only to find
himself short of the mandated word count! Sorrowfully, he improvises throughout,
just to fill the pages: repetitive text and lots of gibberish, needless
situations, and soap opera clichés and aimless dialogues. Guess what? That
leads to exactly the opposite of the novel’s intended goal of inducing suspense
and thrill: it goes slack, tension deflates and many-a-time the prose seems
lackluster.
The case of
the ice-cold hands starts with the typical enigmatic female whose sultry
attitude and lies would rebel the most patient of lawyers—but not Perry Mason.
She hands the lawyer five one hundred dollars tickets she’d bet on a lame horse
whose odds of winning the race are fifty to one; however, the horse is
supposedly to win the day’s race anyway. She asks P Mason to cash the bet money
on her behalf the following day. Of course, she doesn’t offer any explanation
on why she wouldn’t cash them herself, or why in the first place she’s absolutely
sure she’d win the bet money.
When Perry
Mason cashes the money, of course after some implausible action, he hands it to
his client, who now asks him yet another favor: to bail out her brother, who
turns out to have embezzled his employer, who is a tax evader himself. The
heinous employer hunts down after the brother, the sister, and of course Perry
Mason. He believes that the money with which the winning tickets were bought
was his, and thus he’s entitled to have all the winnings for himself—and yes,
he’s hitting on the sister as well.
The rest is
formulaic as hell: the flagrant employer is killed in the motel room of Mason’s
client, and of course, she’s charged with his murder…and hell she looks like
it, and really does deserve hanging from the rope.
Follows the
routine confrontation with L.A. district attorney, Hamilton Burger, who’s more
confident than ever of his victory. He’s got an ace up his sleeve, and is ready
to give Perry Mason a run for his money. Of course, he doesn’t: Perry Mason’s
wit, and an incredulous luck turns the table down on the devastated district
attorney, and Perry Mason saves his client neck as usual.
*Spoilers*
The novel has faults beyond count, but the worst of them was one I hardly
expected. I’ve read loads of court room thrillers-many of them Perry Masons by the
way-still I’m yet to read worse court room squabble. How Hamilton Burger argues
is lame, and even worse is his reaction in court to the failure of his scheme.
His reactions are altogether childish, unprofessional, and utterly unbelievable
on account of a veteran counsel.
Other
implausibilities include the weak reasoning behind the district attorney’s
intention of forcing the brother to testify against his sister. The man was had
nothing to gain should he really incriminate his sister, who by the way, had
saved and helped him throughout the novel. Then the most ridiculous thing: just
for the lame reason that he’s given immunity, the brother surprisingly declares
himself the murderer…while his own counselor is nodding and approving readily!
Even though he didn’t commit the crime, neither did his sister!
Then just how
Perry Mason guesses out the real murderer is plain absurdity. Yet, the real
shock was the proof: the villain holds the incriminating hundred dollar
banknotes in his own wallet while testifying in court. How convenient of him!
I really
can’t believe how I enjoyed reading and believing this-almost fantasy-fiction
twenty years ago. How naïve!
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