The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner, 1933

I review this novel as part of my own “First Novels” challenge and for Friday’s Forgotten Books over at Patti Abbott’s blog, Pattinase.

The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933), the first Perry Mason mystery by Erle Stanley Gardner, is unlike any Perry Mason I have read. 

Mason doesn’t go to court, so there is neither a court trial nor a court battle. There is no district attorney Hamilton Burger or Lieutenant Arthur Tragg. A young and emotional Della Street and a sleepless and hardworking Paul Drake assist him on the case. There is a beautiful and seductive client who hires him to rescue her out of possible blackmail, involving her and an ambitious politician. She pays him a handsome retainer, flirts with him, lies to him, pleads with him, and turns around and accuses him when her husband, the owner of a society rag, turns up dead. Finally, there is Mason himself who, in spite of being in serious trouble, refuses to ditch his client and dump the case.

The Case of the Velvet Claws requires no introduction or review. Most readers of mystery and legal thrillers and especially fans of Perry Mason have read it. The tale of blackmail and murder has enough grit and grime and reads like the plot of a hardboiled novel. What really elevates the story is the hardnosed character of Perry Mason who pulls out every trick from his legal hat to extricate himself from the mess and sticks his neck out to prove his crafty client’s innocence. In this, he is both gangster-like and gentlemanly.

During an emotional lip-locking scene between Perry Mason and Della Street, Gardner uses a term which, I thought, best describes his character in the novel—“gruff tenderness.”

Fans of Perry Mason will enjoy The Case of the Velvet Claws for the excellent storyline and characterisation and because, like I said, it’s unlike any Mason novel you are likely to read subsequently.

Recommended.

Spontaneity is the art of life

One July afternoon, four years ago, I finished my lunch in office and on an impulse decided to draw something. I typed “scenery” and “landscape” in Google images and found one I thought would be easy to sketch in half an hour. After all, I was being paid to bring out a newspaper, not give vent to my creative juices. I picked up my HB pencil and rubber, flicked an A4-size paper from the printer, and proceeded to replicate the image sitting on my desktop. I don’t know what inspired me at the time. It was probably the canteen food laced with sodium bicarbonate. Two days later, my pet dog, who was less than a year old, made a nice meal out of my sketch. Luckily, I’d got it scanned. This was the end result. 

Copyright: Prashant C. Trikannad

I might add that professional art runs on my mother’s side though just about everyone in the family dabbles in it. I might also add that I posted just this sketch on my blog in July 2011. Back then, I was new to blogging and didn’t know many bloggers. Okay, now I'm fishing!

Mack Bolan needs a new home

Mack Bolan #1 by Don Pendleton

On March 6, fellow blogger Evan Lewis reviewed a Mack Bolan action-thriller The Executioner 42: The Iranian Hit by Stephen Mertz on his blog Davy Crockett’s Almanack. There, thanks to a comment by Steve Lewis, I learned that Gold Eagle, publisher of The Executioner series, had decided to close down, leaving Mack Bolan homeless, at least for now.

I completely missed Gold Eagle’s announcement, June 12, 2014, on its website—“Gold Eagle will be closed down in December 2015. All of the series belonging to Gold Eagle have been cancelled. Whether Mack Bolan will find a new home with a different publisher remains to be seen.”

When Gold Eagle says “All of the series belonging to Gold Eagle have been cancelled,” I assume it includes, apart from the 400-plus Mack Bolan novels, spinoffs like Super Bolan, Able Team, Phoenix Force, and Stony Man.

Mack Bolan, universal soldier, is a fictional character originally created by American writer Don Pendleton (1927-1995) who wrote 37 of the novels before selling his rights to Gold Eagle in 1980. The latter went on to publish some 700 novels, more than half of which include Mack Bolan standalone adventures. All of these have been written by a number of ghostwriters like Stephen Mertz, Mike Newton, Thomas Ramirez, and Mel Odom.

Mack Bolan #442 by Mike Newton

I first read Mack Bolan in the mid-eighties, when I was in my teens. I saw this paperback, whose title I don’t remember now, sticking out from under a pile of books at a private circulating library. I took it out and said to myself, “I can draw this picture.” In those days drawing and painting was a serious hobby, influenced by professional artists on my mother’s side. I found the cover attractive and proceeded to replicate it in an A4-size drawing book.

I don’t know what happened to my illustration but I read the novel and was hooked to Mack Bolan—the warrior, the one-man army, the fighting machine. After that, I forgot all about The Executioner until the close of the last decade when I revived my interest in Mack Bolan and the spinoffs. The books are not easily available in India but over the years I have managed to collect some two dozen novels from used bookshops.

Even if Mack Bolan doesn’t find a new home soon, I still have plenty of his books to read and I will continue to be on the hunt for more titles from the Gold Eagle stable.

All’s Fair… by Richard Wormser, 1937

Today is Holi in India, the ancient Hindu religious festival also known as the spring festival and, more popularly, as the festival of colours or the festival of love. People light a bonfire the previous night and step out on to the streets next morning to smear and bathe each other in a riot of dry and wet colours, and sing and dance and make merry. I stayed indoors, as I do every year, and used the public holiday to do something useful, like writing this review for Friday’s Forgotten Books over at Patti Abbott’s blog Pattinase.

“We want you to go in there," the scarred man said, "and find out who killed young Gowan. Why, how, everything. But you'll have to work undercover.”

Before I get down to my brief review of All’s Fair…, here’s a word about the New York-born author. Richard Wormser (1908-1977) has claimed to have written seventeen Nick Carter magazine stories during 1932-33. I have never read Nick Carter as a pulp fiction private detective who made his debut in 1886. I have only read his latter-day adventures as an AXE spy called Killmaster.

The novella All’s Fair… is about young MacBlair who travels from one mining county in California in the West to another in Ware County in the East ostensibly to learn how labour is taken care of and how miners are handled.

“They got a right to know about unions. So we sent this man in. Told him to play it easy, avoid the rough stuff. Hell, it's fertile ground there!

In reality, Mac is an organiser and a troubleshooter. He has been sent all the way to Ware County by union leader Lawrence to find out who killed his son, Gowan, and help bring the killer to justice.

The brave and feisty Mac operates undercover, disguised as the son of a fictitious mine owner in the west.

In Ware County, he encounters big old John Alastair and old Harford Rand, two rich and powerful mine owners who run the county with an iron hand. They are backed by corrupt deputies, foremen, and spies who help them keep a tight lid on union trouble.

Mac stays with the Alistairs who believe he is, in fact, the son of a fellow mine owner on a study tour, and enjoys their hospitality. Openly, he learns their mining ways; secretly, he investigates Gowan’s murder.

It’s not long before Mac falls in love with blue-eyed Sue Alastair who discovers his identity and the purpose of his visit to Ware County. She surprises Mac by revealing she is on the side of the miners.

The Mac-Sue love story, subdued as it’d seem, is soon overshadowed by the miners who, led by Lawrence, now in their midst, strike work. Sue is kidnapped but safe. And Mac finds himself in the crossfire between the mine owners and their gun-toting henchmen on one hand and the striking mine workers on the other.

In spite of its fast pace, All Fair’s… is a moderate story about mine owners and their treatment of mine workers. It’s all quite atmospheric, in fact, and probably reflective of the state of union labour and the condition of miners prevalent at the time. I agree with the description that “It is more than a stirring love story” and that “Its setting is a turbulent mining county where money and corrupt politicians rule with guns” into which Mac walks to solve a murder. No single character, not even Mac's, stands out which doesn't make this novella any less readable.

“I don't get you, mister,” Mac said, mopping. “I’m from California.”

“Yeah?” One-eye sneered. “And me, I’m from the moon. What the hell, have the conservative unions gone in for boring from within now? I thought they left that to us?”

Judging from All’s Fair…, Richard Wormser, I suspect, knew a thing or two about the mining business and how it worked. At times I felt the novella read like a western for there were shades of it.

© MoviesPictures.org

The author
Richard Edward Wormser wrote pulp and detective fiction, screenplays, and westerns, some of it under the pseudonym of Ed Friend. He is believed to have written 300 short stories, 200 novelettes, 12 books, and even a cookbook titled Southwest Cookery or At Home on the Range. He was fairly known for his Nick Carter stories. His two murder-mystery novels are The Man with the Wax Face and The Communist's Corpse. I’m interested in reading his pulp fiction.

Branham’s Due by Richard Prosch, 2012

© www.richardprosch.com

In Branham’s Due, American writer Richard Prosch introduces the reader to Whit Branham, the bold and fearless deputy sheriff of Holt County, Nebraska, who sets out to bring in Johann Kramer, a notorious horse-thief and killer of Dakota Territory. The wanted man is holed up in old Iron Creek. Armed with his trusted shotgun, Branham approaches the “sod hovel” on foot and takes Kramer by surprise. The outlaw, a few years older than the lawman’s thirty-two, attempts a trick or two in a vain effort to overcome his captor. Branham helps Kramer get on his horse, Lubber, and the two men start back for O’Neill City.

As many western stories will tell you, bringing in a dangerous outlaw is never easy and Branham finds out the hard way when he is “ambushed” on the trail by “a big block of a woman” with a “big pumpkin face.” Her name is Darla and she is Kramer’s girlfriend. Years before, she and Whit grew up together. She was also his Sunday school teacher.

The twist in this 3,000-word story is in what happens next. Branham uses a ploy that could have cost him his life but he lives to take us on another adventure, in Holt County Law, a novella released in 2013.

Richard Prosch is not handicapped by the length of Branham’s Due. Within the confines of his short and crisp narrative, we are also told about the novelty of barbed wire fences and the lay of the land in Nebraska, where he was raised; Branham’s thoughtfulness in shielding Barney Kearns, his boss and Holt County sheriff, and setting out alone to hunt down the outlaw; and the pleasant conversation between old friends Branham and Darla in the middle of the ambush. These may seem like insignificant elements in the plot but they enrich the story and make it more interesting. Whit Branham is a strong protagonist even though his character begs adequate description. His is the sort of character that develops in your head as you read this fine western story.

I enjoyed Branham’s Due a lot and I’ll be reading Holt County Law soon. You can read more about Richard Prosch and his work at his website here.

Recommended

My reading in February

In India, young students who live in slums and hovels and often have no access to electricity study under candlelight or streetlight and still triumph in their exams. It proves you can read anywhere, anytime, under any circumstance; even more so if it is for pleasure. Hence, fewer days in the month or preoccupation with personal and professional issues are no excuses for reading lesser number of books. I know I can make time to read. The reason I'm being apologetic about the few books I read, first in January and then last month, is because I have set a fairly high reading goal for myself this year—at least eight books and a dozen short stories every month. So far I have failed on both counts. I'm looking at the remaining ten months with renewed optimism.

However, I'm not letting all that take away the pleasure of reading the ones I do. I enjoyed four out of the five novels and novellas. The exception was Criminal Justice (2014) by Patrick Graham, a legal thriller with inexcusable grammatical and proofreading errors. It seemed as if the writer was keen to hammer out the story and have it self-published as soon as possible. I persisted till the end because that is what I usually do even with books that put me off and because I actually bought the ebook from Amazon.

As usual, I have listed the novels and short stories by year of publication and not in the order I read them. I plan to review at least three of these in coming days.

Novels & Novellas

1936 - The case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner - Crime

1937 - All’s Fair by Richard Wormser - General

1942 - The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas - Historical (Reread)

1976 - Swag by Elmore Leonard - Crime

2014 - Criminal Justice by Patrick Graham - Legal Thriller

Short Stories

1914 - Death at the Excelsior by P.G. Wodehouse - Detective-Mystery

2012 - Branham’s Due by Richard Prosch - Western

Meanwhile, I continue to join the family in watching Monk and Downton Abbey on week nights. While the former is becoming stereotyped, the latter is holding fascination for now. Adrian Monk’s OCD is getting to me. He is spending a better part of the hour being preoccupied with one thing or other and touching and straightening things rather than investigating the crime, which he eventually does in the last ten minutes or so. And I can see why some of my blog friends said Downton Abbey was like a soap opera. A polished one, I might add. My favourite character so far is Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Dame Maggie Smith), on account of her one-liners told with a straight face. The makers of the series have started bumping off characters which means we’re in for some bad times.

As I mentioned earlier, personal and professional reasons have kept me away from blogging these past few days. I have been using my laptop at home only to pay bills. There are times when I feel like giving up blogging altogether. Although I enjoy blogging, I find it a bit overwhelming at times. In any case, the blogging world won’t be any poorer by my absence. For now I’ll stick around and see how things work out.

The Oscars

It took me an hour, not counting the half-hour and more of the red carpet, to decide that I didn’t want to watch the rest of the four-hour long Oscars jamboree. Neil Patrick Harris, in spite of his good and honest intentions, and spotlessly clean undies, was flat and most of his jokes were lame, some to the point of embarrassing the viewer. He seemed awkward and looked as if he’d rather be somewhere else than inside the Dolby Theatre that night. I was assured that Harris usually acted like that on screen. In any case I was watching a rerun with four-minute long commercials every fifteen minutes, the Academy Awards were already history, and it was past my bedtime.

I watch the Oscars and the Golden Globe mainly to listen to the acceptance speeches which, in recent years, have been a disappointment. The speeches are seldom witty and clever. They’re mostly boring and drawn-out.

I remember the time when Michael Caine won a Golden Globe for Little Voice in 1999, and began his speech with this classic line—“Oh, what a shock. My career must be slipping. This is the first time I've been available to pick up an award.” He had the audience and viewers eating out of his Golden Globe. But you expected that sort of wit from Caine.

Years later, in 2007, his compatriot Hugh Laurie won a Golden Globe for House M.D. and proceeded to regale us with, “I am speechless. I'm literally without a speech. It seems odd to me that in the weeks leading up to this event, when people are falling over themselves to send you free shoes and free cufflinks and free colonic irrigations for two, nobody offers you a free acceptance speech. It just seems to me to be a gap in the market. I would love to be able to pull out a speech by Dolce & Gabbana.” You expected that kind of wit from Laurie, too.

Are the Brits naturally good at it?

In contrast, yesterday, Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski, who won the award for best foreign language film, rambled on for so long that he was “booed” out by the orchestra, while best supporting actress Patricia Arquette did what I dislike most, a political statement on gender equality much to the delight of Meryl Streep who was on her feet and clapping.

It’s funny how Arquette looked like Streep’s twin.

A few points of view: why do award winners thank their spouses, their children, and their parents in predictable fashion? Why do the cast and crew of foreign film, documentary, and short film categories sit in the balconies like pariahs? What if the prompter mixes up the lines of the various presenters? What happens if the master of ceremonies has a panic attack? Are Clooney, Streep, and Travolta warned in advance they’d be the butt of jokes? Why is the Golden Globe better than the Academy Awards? Why can't the dozen-plus Bollywood film awards be as snazzy as their Hollywood counterparts? Why don't I read a good book, instead?