The DA Calls It Murder – Erle Stanley Gardner,
1937
This is the first book featuring DA Doug Selby who appeared
in nine mysteries from 1937 to 1949. It opens with Selby and his friend Sheriff
Max Brandon flushed with victory in their recent election to office in Madison
City, about 100 miles north of Hollywood. As Brandon is a faithful pard right
out of pulp Westerns, Selby’s GF Sylvia Martin is a typical Gardnerian heroine
along the lines of Della Street: smart, savvy, insightful, and devoted.
The first third of the story is better than the remaining
part. Gardner sets up a plausibly corrupt county and medium-sized urban
setting, with powerful local businessmen and mud-slinging newspapers, The Blade (Republican) and The Clarion (Democrat). As for the
story, a corpse is discovered in a hotel. His wife is summoned from Nevada,
only to fail to identify the body as her husband. She promptly demands her
expenses be paid for her wasted trip.
Selby takes up detecting duties to gather details about
an envelope containing $5,000, a lawsuit over an estate, and a movie scenario
of an unintentionally hilarious melodrama titled Lest Ye Be Judged. Also involved are a high-tech camera and a
poisoned dog (take it easy – Gardner was a dog lover so the dog is going to be
okay). Selby questions a movie star who lays a lot of New Age California woo on
him. Selby also comes within an ace of being hypnotized by the motion picture
actress. The scene in which they come to an agreement about where their
relationship is going will call to mind scenes between, say, Ida Lupino and
Ronald Colman.
The subplots get tangled, the characters act improbably.
This is balanced by Selby’s rational approach to detecting, summed up as,
“People focus on ‘What’s in it for me’ but their proximity to each other
doesn’t mean they are involved with each other – don’t get distracted.” Plus,
Gardner’s highly readable prose drives the story effectively. We readers can
always trust his stories to move.
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