Fri 21 May 2021
Mystery Review: ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Hesitant Hostess.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[11] Comments
ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Hesitant Hostess. Perry Mason #41. William Morrow, hardcover, April 1953. Pocket, paperback; 1st printing, September 1956.
Every once in a while, there is one of the Perry Mason novels which does not end up in a courtroom, with Perry giving D.A. Hamilton Burger his lumps one more time. One such was The Case of the Silent Partner (1940), the TV version of which I watched not too long ago. (And as such it was a shame, as the theatrics in the courtroom is what every reader or viewer always sits back and waits for. Disappointing!)
But as if to make up for that earlier lapse, Hesitant Hostess actually begins with a courtroom scene. It does not go well for Perry, however, as a witness he was counting on disappears from the small room where he had her waiting. Luckily it is a Friday, so he has an entire weekend to track her down and find out why she bailed on him so precipitously.
She is a hostess at a local night club – hence the title – and Perry’s first ploy is to pretend that he is a paying customer. There is one long chapter, a rather risque one for a Gardner novel, I should think – in which the curious reader begins to wonder how far the flirtation of sorts will go.
Perry’s client is purely pro bono – a 50ish retiree who is accused of a robbery at gunpoint from one car to another – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t pull out all the stops in defending him. His bill from Paul Drake – he the private eye with hundreds of operatives working for him – must have ended up in the thousands of dollars.
It seems like a very minor case until around page 90 or so, when the police suddenly tie the robbery to the murder of a young woman from a few weeks earlier, and all seriousness breaks out. Even Della Street gets into the act, breaking and entering a suspect’s apartment to do some fingerprint work.
And the plot gets equally confusing – does the missing hostess have a double, a twin sister, perhaps? – but not so confusing as to make the final explanation (almost) intelligible. It’s 100% certified as a doozy, though. This was a lot of fun to read. Recommended.
May 21st, 2021 at 9:21 pm
There is a tendency to think of the Fifties and beyond Mason books as still clever but rather formula bound and somewhat repetitive. This one proves that judgement is far from sound. In many ways this harkens back to the early pre War Mason novels when Perry was much faster on his feet and he and Della and Paul far less scrupulous about what they did to save their client than later books.
May 22nd, 2021 at 6:16 am
Which of the early more Black Mask oriented Perry Masons would our experts most highly recommend?
I’ve read the first one of the Masons…
May 22nd, 2021 at 12:03 pm
That’s a good question, Rick. I’ll have to wait for another expert to tell me as well. I read the early ones over 60 years ago, and I only hope I’ll have a chance to read them again some day. The best I can offer are these synopses of the first six or seven from Wikipedia. You can’t go wrong with any of these. LUCKY LEGS is the first one I read, so of course it’s my favorite.
The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933)
William Morrow and Company, March 1933[5]:323[a]
In the first Perry Mason mystery, we meet Perry, Della Street and detective Paul Drake for the first time. District Attorney Hamilton Burger and Lieutenant Arthur Tragg do not appear in this story. There is no courtroom scene in the entire novel, which is prevalent in the later books. The plot revolves around a spoiled woman, who calls herself “Eva Griffin”. She comes to Mason claiming that she is being blackmailed by her powerful husband. She wants to keep the news of her affairs secret from him and seeks help from Mason. Meanwhile, she is accused of murder and, in turn, puts the blame on Mason himself. But Perry avoids being double-crossed and fights to free her from the charges.
The Case of the Sulky Girl (1933)
William Morrow and Company, September 1933[5]:324
A bratty heiress wants to keep the news of a man in her life a secret from the guardian who controls her purse strings. Then, when there is a murder, that same man is accused.
The Case of the Lucky Legs (1934)
William Morrow and Company, February 1934[5]:324
Perry tries to represent a woman taken in by a con man. Other women show up conned by the same man, and their boyfriends show up, and suddenly there is a death. A mistake at the murder scene dogs Perry, as he tries to figure out what is going on before something happens to him…
The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)
Serialized in Liberty Magazine, January 13 – March 17, 1934; William Morrow and Company, June 1934[5]:324
When a potential client wants to see Mason about a howling dog and a will, the attorney is uninterested. He does not enjoy drafting wills, and wonders if the man should not see a veterinarian. However, the man’s next question, whether a will is legal if the person who made it had been executed for murder, immediately piques Mason’s interest. He finds, in addition to the will and the dog, a man who had run away with the wife of another, and a sexy housekeeper.[6] The Hollywood movie of this name is considered the best big screen adaptation of a Perry Mason book.
The Case of the Curious Bride (1934)
Serialized in Liberty Magazine, July 7 – September 15, 1934; William Morrow and Company, November 1934[5]:324
A woman claiming not to be a bride consults Mason about her “friend” whose husband, long thought to have died in a plane crash, turns up alive.
The Case of the Counterfeit Eye (1935)
William Morrow and Company, April 1935[5]:324
Peter Brunold has a bloodshot glass eye to use the “morning after.” It is distinctive, closely identified with him, and thus a handicap when a corpse is found clutching a bloodshot glass eye. Later, another corpse is found, with another bloodshot glass eye in hand. But Mason is in almost as much jeopardy as his client, as his fingerprints have been found on one of the alleged murder weapons.[6] This is the first novel in which District Attorney Hamilton Burger appears.
The Case of the Caretaker’s Cat (1935)
Serialized in Liberty Magazine, June 15 – August 17, 1935; William Morrow and Company, September 1935[5]:324
After his employer dies in a fire, a caretaker hires Mason to allow him to keep his cat against the wishes of the men who inherit. When the caretaker is killed, Mason defends the man accused of his murder.
May 22nd, 2021 at 9:29 pm
I would say almost any of the pre War Mason’s are worth reading, but then I tend to like most of the books in the series.
I think the leather bound editions I had published the first twelve, but it might have been the first eight. By the time Perry moved over to the Saturday Evening Post it could be argued Perry became much less hard-boiled and more law abiding, but even there Gardner could push the envelope.
May 22nd, 2021 at 10:43 pm
Even before the POST, the Mason stories were being serialized in LIBERTY MAGAZINE. I wonder if that’s when the hard-boiled edge began to wear off.
May 22nd, 2021 at 10:11 pm
My ESG collecting buddy recently unearthed a long-sought after and as-yet-undiscovered, very-early-career, ESG work. I hope to be able to air the details soon.
May 22nd, 2021 at 10:49 pm
Do tell us more when you can, Lazy. My pulp collecting days are over, but I always made a point of buying any of them that had a ESG story in it. He always stood out from all the the other authors, save maybe a couple of guys named either Hammett or Chandler.
May 24th, 2021 at 5:15 am
Even after the books were no longer hard-boiled (which in my view was a big improvement) Mason still took some real risks – such as in “The Case of the Screaming Woman”, where from perfectly good motives he finds himself in possession of some stolen property.
May 24th, 2021 at 11:24 am
You’re right. Besides the courtroom scenes which readers always waited for, to see Hamilton Burger outwitted one more time, I think another great source of appeal was watching Perry skate just within legal limits in standing up for his clients. And that particular aspects of the books extended far beyond his early hard-boiled days, maybe all the way to the end.
May 24th, 2021 at 7:16 pm
I think one of my favorite Mason ploys, dramatized on the series, was buying a hotel and changing the room numbers to hide the murder room, something he was “legally” able to do as owner of the hotel the way Gardner worked it.
In later years Mason would more often be accused of this kind of thing than actually be guilty of it. Early on (I think in either HOWLING DOG or STUTTERING BISHOP) he advises a client there are only a handful of ways to rid oneself of a blackmailer and one of them is murder.
Frankly Warren William wasn’t entirely miscast as the early Mason.
June 1st, 2021 at 10:05 pm
My crony cleared me to divulge his latest exploit. Naturally I’m clueless about all this but apparently it’s a big deal in the world of ESG collecting.
Anyone interested in ‘Marry For Money’ or ‘Dark Blonde’ by Gardner, say so. I will put you in touch. There’s talk of simply putting these on the open market and risking the wrath of the estate.
Speaking for myself, I can only marvel.