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.

The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner

In organizing my book collection, I found that I had an Impress Mysteries version of Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Velvet Claws. I was also delighted to discover that this was the first full-length Perry Mason mystery. What better way to start exploring Gardner and to launch this blog diary, than to read the first Perry Mason story? A novel that started a series book run that lasted over 80 novels.

First off, let me just say that I’ve known about Gardner’s main character, Perry Mason, pretty much all my life and primarily through television. Perry Mason was a show my mother and my grandparents watched during its initial run and through its subsequent syndication. Since it was a television show from an era before my time, and a show that my parents watched, I never really paid attention to it. Raymond Burr was getting up in his years and still portraying the same character. I always just assumed it was courtroom drama. What a silly mistake.

In college, I discovered Raymond Chandler. I soaked in everything I could find on Chandler including interviews and biographies. The one thing that I always noticed was that Chandler cited Gardner has a big influence on his writing style. Even after that glowing endorsement, and that was sometime in the nineties, I still did not actively pursue Gardner until this year. However, over the years, if I found a Gardner, hardback or paperback, in good shape, I would purchase it knowing that one day that I would read it.

Now, to start this new journey with a classic pulp novel, and one, I am happy to say that so successfully hooked me, is Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Velvet Claws. The novel has all the elements of great pulp: the punchy, tough-guy talk, the mysterious double crossing dame, and, most importantly, swift action. I was surprised, maybe even shocked, that this was not the TV courtroom drama that I thought it was going to be. Hell, I didn’t even picture Raymond Burr as I remembered him in the series.

What I like about this novel is that Mason is determined to complete the job he’s hired to do, despite the fact that he’s being fingered for the crime. Stacking the odds against Mason drives the story with precision steering up and down the roller-coaster. Not only does he solve the crime, but he also manages to continue to defend his client even when she claims to have heard Mason in a deadly confrontation with her husband just before his death. It’s fantastic. I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t discovered him sooner.

As mentioned earlier, my copy is from ImPress Mysteries. I’m currently seeking out the vintage paperbacks. Don’t snatch them up.