Note: In this 1953 outing, Gardner chooses Hawaii as the setting, emphasizing leis, hula, and surfing at Waikiki. Highly unusual because he wasn’t a product placement kind of writer, he even mentions by name three hotels that offer nice lodgings. In those palmy post-WWII days, I imagine the stressful memories of the war were fading and people were thinking of getting away from it all. Later in the Fifties, the massive boom of the jet age and statehood (1959) changed everything.
Some Women Won’t Wait – Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A. A. Fair
Erle Stanley Gardner, best known for Perry Mason’s courtroom theatrics, moonlighted with a different sort of duo: Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. If Mason is all gravitas and method, Cool and Lam are screwy – a partnership of private detectives who somehow always make the situation worse but come out of it smelling like roses. Bertha, a woman of formidable girth and even more formidable greed, is obsessed with getting fat fees. Donald, her pint-sized partner, compensates for his lack of muscle with a surplus of quick-wittedness and a knack for wriggling out of trouble.
This particular caper begins aboard a Pacific cruise ship and drifts into Honolulu’s sun-drenched temptations. The setup? A young, fun-loving playgirl marries a man old enough to be her grandfather. Six months later, he’s dead. She’s not in a widow's black - she’s sunning on a beach in something far more revealing. Was it impatience? Opportunism? Or something nastier? Did her husband really ask her to buy that arsenic? What happened? Why is she alone? And how much trouble is she in?
As usual, Bertha blunders about like five puppies duking it out over three toys, while Donald plays the cerebral sleuth - though here he indulges in spy guy surveillance among the lazy palm trees. The plot is brisk, the dialogue snappy, and the atmosphere pure mid-century vakay with sandy beaches, tropical flowers and balmy temps. With all the “delectable babes” in skimpy swimsuits on Waikiki, it is more male-gazey than usual, and there is a surprising reference to Oriental inscrutability that I would have thought Gardner was above.
Gardner keeps the emotional thermostat at zero - motives revolve around money and its attendant security, not passion. No torrid love affairs, just inheritance schemes and extortion. Gardner has Lam narrate the story, but Lam is no more forthcoming with us readers than he is with the other characters. The real shocker? For once, Donald’s freedom isn’t menaced by cops that want his hide tacked to the wall. Though not much action is on tap, the ride is fun, the setting lush, and Bertha’s swimsuit and traditional Hawaiian garb moments alone are pretty funny. If you like your mysteries brisk, brainy, and just a little absurd, this Waikiki holiday delivers.
No comments:
Post a Comment