Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) does not need an introduction. However, just in case, he was an attorney who didn’t care for the practice of law. He started writing pulp fiction in the 1920s so that he could leave the law as a profession behind. The general public knows him best as the creator of Perry Mason courtroom dramas but under the name of A. A. Fair he wrote a series about a pair of private investigators named Donald Lam and Bertha Cool. He also wrote mysteries with a district attorney as the main character, a couple with Terry Clane and Grampa Wiggins, and collections of short stories.

His nonfiction focused mainly on travel; he loved southern California and Mexico and went camping in the desert frequently. His interest in the outdoors pops into his Perry Mason stories here and there, most notably in The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito (Morrow, 1943), a book about a miner with failing health who, despite the best efforts of his family, slipped away into the healing environment of the desert as often as he could.

In The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom (Morrow, 1949), Edward Charles Garvin of Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development has embarked on matrimony for the second time and is enjoying the first few weeks of his new marriage until his former wife advises him that she did not finalize the Reno divorce he thought set him free and she was about to file bigamy charges against him. When her body is discovered shortly thereafter, he is the prime suspect.

Wrapped in and around the basic plot thread is a young woman Mason finds climbing down the fire escape outside his office window late at night. Then there’s the annual meeting of the board of directors of Garvin’s company which he thinks is straightforward but turns quickly into a proxy fight to take over the corporation. Add a quick trip to Mexico to give Gardner a chance to extol the scenery and some of Gardner’s trademark courtroom scenes, and the result is plenty of action to this legal thriller which holds as much investigation outside the courtroom as it does within.

I read this entire series, all 80 plus books, a long time ago when I first discovered mysteries and no doubt was under the influence of the original television program. With the advent of the HBO adaptations, some of the books are being released in electronic form, including this one. Upon this re-reading, the first thing that struck me is the overwhelming misogyny. It was typical of the time and place and also likely due to Gardner’s unhappy first marriage. But women are scheming gold diggers, and men are naïve hardworking characters who need to be protected from the machinations of these she-devils. It set my teeth on edge and sent my blood pressure soaring.

Looking past that sore point, I realized that this was one of the books that marked Gardner’s transition from hardboiled pulp style to something a little smoother. Both Sergeant Holcomb, Mason’s law enforcement foil of early books, and Lieutenant Tragg of the Los Angeles Homicide Department appear here, a rare occurrence. Holcomb disappears completely by 1950 or 1951, and Mason himself becomes a bit more polished and less of a diamond in the rough.  

Another detail that I remember captured my attention in my first readings of Mason’s adventures is his approach to character naming. Nearly all of the characters have uncommon names and I still wonder how he found them. Hamlin and Alman as given names, for instance, and Minden and Tragg for surnames. Never a Smith, Jones, or Brown to be found, as I recall.

The flags that marked the time are always intriguing to me: the external fire escape alongside the office building, the gossip columnists that fed off the mishaps of local celebrities, the clothing styles, Reno as a divorce mill.

The plot of course is the real reason to read these books. Gardner created ingenious but plausible plots that hold up even now. They are not always well clued, often are not, but watching Mason pull his legal rabbits out of a hat is always entertaining.