In this, the second installment of my column, I’ll be covering three books by Erle Stanley Gardner, best known as the creator of Perry Mason. I’ll be first reviewing two of his Cool/Lam mysteries: a detective team ahead of its time. Since these books were written starting in the early 1940s, to have a woman so bold and brash as Bertha Cool was not the norm. The great thing about the Cool/Lam books is that you can read them in any order; there is very little continuty to worry about. Following those two will be a Perry Mason novel. They can all be found dirt cheap, so start looking, folks. Let me make one thing clear: I won’t be giving away any spoilers or any huge plot points in these reviews.
Well, the best place to start for this would actually be the first in the whole series, which Gardner penned under his A.A. Fair pseudonym: THE BIGGER THEY COME, in which we learn the start of Donald Lam’s detective career and meet Bertha Cool, a sizable woman with the assurance of a steamroller. It seems Lam was a former lawyer who knows of a way of commiting a murder and getting away with it. When he explained the process to someone else, it got him thrown out of the law buisness for a year.
We learn right away that Lam is pretty much on his last dime, answering an ad for a detective at the Cool agency. He is not what you would call a typical detective type, either: less Mike Hammer, more Steve Buscemi. His first assignment is to serve divorce papers to a missing husband who’s also wanted by the police and the crime world. What’s great about the Fair books is that you think you figured it out, then wham – just like on LAW & ORDER – here comes the twist no one expects. Such is the case with this story. After Lam serves the papers, the husband shows up dead in an apartment, setting up an innocent girl as the patsy. Cue suspense music. A fine read.
Skipping ahead in the series to CROWS CAN’T COUNT, a tale of trustees, emeralds and, of course, murder. Like all of the series, it starts so innocently with the agency being hired by a man named Sharples, a trustee trying to find out why a family heirloom has turned up in a jewerly store. Well, after Lam finishes the job with no real headaches, it turns out the other trustee was involved. who naturally turns up dead. We’re now led through a great tale with a suprising payoff. It seems the main motive might have been that when both trustees are dead, then the money is split in two for the heirs – no questions asked.
Was this the reason for murder or is there something Lam has not been told? This sets the story off on a wild tear to seedy neighrborhoods, a crow’s second home and Columbia. It’s another great Cool/Lam mystery that I could not figure out.
Finally, Perry Mason solves THE CASE OF THE HESITANT HOSTESS. I’m guessing most everyone has heard the name Perry Mason, likely from the old Raymond Burr TV show. But the books are very different, as Mason is much more hands-on in his approach, to the point of bending the law to its breaking point.
HOSTESS starts out with Mason defending a stick-up man for free since it was assigned to him by the courts. We literally are thrown into a court case at the halfway mark. You can tell Mason doesn’t feel right about the whole thing and believes the man was set up to take a fall. So as he is about to call one of his witnesses to the stand, it seems she has run away. This gets the ball rolling; from here on out Mason is on the warpath to prove his client’s innocence, leading into crooked nightclubs and false identities.
What’s really the selling point of the series are the courtroom scenes where Perry Mason works his magic to trip up witnesses into confessions. But be forewarned: Not all Perry Mason books are keepers; from what I’ve found out, there are some real clunkers. Also, the early ones in the series are more Cool/Lam-like, since Mason does more detective work than courtroom gymnastics. So put down the Grisham and pick up one from the master.
Next time: karate, spies and naked thighs! –Bruce Grossman
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