Top of the Heap by Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A.A. Fair

There is a saying in my head that states, “You read one HardCase Crime; you have to read another!” So, shortly after finishing Peter Rabe’s Stop This Man! from the Hard Case Crime imprint, I immediately went to my shelves and discovered I had another Erle Stanley Gardner book that I had shamefully neglected. Top of the Heap (1952) published under the pen name of A.A. Fair; features the private eye team of Cool and Lam, and like the Perry Mason books, is a long series spanning over 40 years. This work was number thirteen!

Normally, I do make an effort to read an author’s work in order of the series, but I was so compelled to read this book after the first paragraph that I couldn’t stop reading it. The novel begins with a tall, burly character pausing at the door of our duo detectives’ agency and simply asks, “B. Cool?” That line makes me chuckle. Perhaps it’s the modern connotation of the word cool, but I found that a part of a great opening scene.

Not knowing the series past events I was worried that I would be lost, but I didn’t feel that way at all. The story picks up right away. Bertha Cool is the senior, controlling partner at the agency and Lam is the chief operative that does most of the groundwork. The agency is hired to find a couple of ladies that seemed to have abandoned our burly gentleman from the opening, but after Lam figures that the job was a set-up for a quick alibi; he begins to dig a little deeper into this affair at the cost of the agency’s, and his own, good name. The story entangles when trying to unravel the shady business inside a nightclub named the Green Door that has tangled into a mobster’s affairs. While the owner of several mining companies, one coincidentally named the Green Door, goes missing, all evidence leads to Lam’s client committing murder and disposing of the body.

What really strikes me about Gardner’s work is the consistency and detail in his structure, and this is only the second novel I’ve read by Gardner. I could feel the elements of the mystery stacking up and playing out in much the same way as The Case of the Velvet Claws. 

For example, in the Velvet Claws, Perry Mason is accused of murder and wanted by the police; but, refuses to stop defending his client until his accuser is proven wrong despite the fact that the accuser and the client is the same person. Likewise, Lam, accused of blackmail after exposing the phony alibi angle refuses to stop working for his client despite the pursuit of the law and the mob. In fact, the client hires Lam to establish a phony alibi creates a good deal of suspicion from the start. There’s definitely a pattern here and one that I hope to explore further with my future reading of Gardner’s work. I really felt comfortable in Gardner’s hands, if you could describe reading a novel that way.

However, and most importantly, it is quite entertaining.

Stop This Man! by Peter Rabe

Peter Rabe's body of work is a relatively new discovery for me with the bulk of his work produced in the fifties and sixties. His original Gold Medal paperbacks aren't easy to find, at least in my general area. However, I did pick up the very collectible Hard CaseCrime reprint of his 1955 novel Stop This Man! I'm a big fan of the Hard Case Crime imprint. Not only has the series introduced me to a great number of authors; they have also upheld the classic tradition of pulp artwork as evidenced by the cover of this book. That artwork alone makes me want to read it without even skimming the synopsis on the back.

I must say that the tone of this novel is very bleak and straight forward with a no-nonsense style prose. I have read that Donald Westlake was influenced by Rabe's writing style and I can definitely recognize that in Westlake's pseudonym Richard Stark novels. There's just enough character development to get the story moving and as the events unfold; there are just enough tidbits of background to become completely absorbed in the action.

Much like a film or a screenplay, the narrative alternates between characters. At first, it appears to be an FBI procedural/ chase novel, but it twists again becomes a heist novel. Then it twists back again into a chase. In retrospect, I find that this is what I enjoyed most; that is, the inability to pigeonhole the type of crime story that it tells. In fact, it contains FBI, Mobsters, ex-cons, dames, botched heists, gold, and nuclear radiation! (On a side note, the film version of Mickey Spillane's Kiss Me Deadly, also produced in 1955, deals with a mysterious stolen package that contains a valuable substance that turns out to be contaminated. The two stories would make a very interesting academic comparison in a much larger work for another day.)

At first, I actually thought this novel was going to be a disappointment; yet, Rabe is able to contain these elements into a story frame without running off course in any direction. The plot begins with an ex-con's supposed final heist. It goes wrong when he manages to steal contaminated gold ore. The ex-con, Catell, is determined to avoid another prison sentence, and in his efforts to off-load his contaminated score and avoid the authorities; he manages to sicken, not only himself, but also everyone around him. Which makes tracking his where a bouts that much easier for the FBI. Catell's character has a very existentialist vibe to him and reminds me of the films of Jean-Pierre Melville, such as Le Samouri. Without guessing the ending, you already feel that this character is doomed from the start.

Overall, I would recommend Rabe’s Stop This Man!