Tue 6 Aug 2019
Book Noted: ERLE STANLEY GARDNER -The Case of the Stuttering Bishop.
Posted by Steve under Books Noted[13] Comments
ERLE STANLEY GARDNER -The Case of the Stuttering Bishop. Perry Mason. William Morrow, hardcover, 1936. Pocket #201, paperback, January 1943. Reprinted many more times. Film: First National / Warner Brothers, 1937 (Donald Woods, Ann Dvorak, Joseph Crehan). TV adaptation: Season 2 Episode 20 of Perry Mason ( 14 March 1959.
This isn’t a review. I never finished the book. I got only so far and I stopped. Thinking I might try again where I let off, I realized that I didn’t really remember what was going on, so I stated skimmed through from the beginning, and taking notes as I went. Herewith, the players, with appropriate page numbers:
1. Perry Mason — the kind of attorney you’d want fighting for your interests if you ever get into a legal jam, except if you’re a rich father with an wastrel son, in which case he’ll turn you down flat, no matter much fee he could charge.
1. Bishop William Mallory — a visitor from Australia who comes to Mason as a client, wishing to know about the statute of limitations in a manslaughter case; the problem is, he stutters — is he a real bishop?
5. Della Street — Mason’s highly trusted personal secretary; they go out together for the occasional meal and dancing, but any closer on a personal basis, they never get.
7. Paul Drake — head of a private detective agency with seemingly unlimited manpower at his beck and call; Mason hires him to check out the bishop as well as any manslaughter cases still open from 22 years before.
10. a cab driver — the one who brought the bishop to Mason’s building; he was asked to wait, but the bishop seems to have gone out a back way without paying the fare.
11. Jackson — Mason’s law clerk, a quite capable individual, but a non-factor in this story.
12. Jim Pauley — house detective at the hotel where the bishop is checked in; he has a sharp eye: he noticed someone following the bishop when he went out, and a redheaded dame who was waiting for him when he returned; when she leaves, he goes up to the bishop’s room and discovers a fight has taken place in the bishop’s room and the bishop concussed (and sent to the hospital).
17. Charlie Downes — one of Drake’s operatives who was following the bishop, then the redhead.
19. Janice Seaton — the aforementioned redhead; she claims she’s a trained nurse who answered an ad placed in a newspaper by the bishop; she found the bishop injured, treated him and left him in bed.
27. Renwold C.Brownley, Oscar Brownley (son), and Julia Branner, who married Oscar 22 years before [as reported by Paul Drake] — but while the latter was driving their car after getting married, she hit and killed a man; hence the (trumped up) manslaughter charges. Oscar is now dead, but the girl thought to be his daughter is living with Renwold; the girl’s mother is still a fugitive from justice.
32. Philip Brownley — [as Perry tells Della] a grandson of Renwold also living with him.
33. Janice Alma Brownley — [as Della tells Perry] Renwold’s granddaughter, who was on the same ship as the bishop as he traveled from Australia to the US; did the bishop suspect she was an imposter?
44. Julia Branner — in person, in Mason’s office; on the advice of the bishop, she is hoping to hire him as her attorney. The bishop has told her that the girl claiming to be her daughter (and Renwold’s granddaughter) is a fraud.
From here, it gets complicated. When Renwold Brownley is supposedly shot and killed, no body can be found, in spite of eyewitnesses to the shooting. And what’s worse, the story that Mason’s client tells gets sounds fishier and fishier.
August 7th, 2019 at 1:38 am
I stayed with this one twice. I read the book (which I rated higher than most readers) then I saw the TV episode, which I enjoyed more than most viewers. It’s also been made into a movie. Of course the TV episode is much less complicated than the book.
August 7th, 2019 at 9:07 am
So, you never finished it?
August 7th, 2019 at 12:15 pm
I suppose the right answer to that question is, no, not yet. This is as far as I’ve gotten. I wrote up these notes about four months ago and only decided to post them last night. You just can’t quit in the middle of a Perry Mason story and pick up it up again without a brand new start, even with a cheat sheet.
August 7th, 2019 at 5:55 pm
Wouldn’t know, I’ve never DNF’d one.
August 7th, 2019 at 6:34 pm
No one reading this blog knows how many books I don’t finish. When they get boring I put them up and somehow just don’t manage to pick them up again. And except for a very very once in a while, like this post, you don’t read about it here.
August 7th, 2019 at 6:37 pm
There’s no prize for answering this question correctly, but how easy would it be to put the covers shown in their correct chronological order? (I just noticed that I added them rather haphazardly.)
August 7th, 2019 at 7:33 pm
I recall not liking this one much – despite being a Gardner fan.
August 7th, 2019 at 8:05 pm
I never managed to put down a Mason or Lam and Cool without finishing it. It’s hard enough not to read them in one sitting.
This one comes from Gardner’s best period with Mason when he was razor thin on the ethics and harder-boiled than later incarnations.
August 7th, 2019 at 8:19 pm
My mistake was putting this one down for too long, and the plot was too complicated for the story to come back to me again. Read the reference to the new characters introduced on page 27, and you’ll see what I mean. I’ll probably not start this one again — there are too many other books to read — but you know,, never say never.
August 8th, 2019 at 4:45 pm
I’m reading The Case of the Crooked Candle right now. I still haven’t come to an explanation of the title, but I’m only halfway through. Perry Mason is usually a fast read, but if I start one in the evening I don’t usually finish until the next day. I just can’t stay up that late.
August 8th, 2019 at 4:47 pm
As far as reading books in one day, me neither. Sometimes a whole week’s worth of bedtime reading goes by before I finish a book.
August 8th, 2019 at 4:48 pm
Regarding the complexity of the Gardner you tried to read, Steve, I understand the earlier Perry Masons are more complicated than the later ones when they became increasingly formulaic. Of course, many people enjoy the formulaic.
August 10th, 2019 at 2:29 pm
I’m reading THE CASE OF THE BORROWED BRUNETTE right now. It’s from 1946 and Perry Mason is full of tricks. I read one book at a time. I rarely quit reading a book but if it hasn’t grabbed me by page 50, I’m done with it. Otherwise, I’ll slog through a weak book to the end.