A few Perries Mason

WARNING: The following post contains some general outline and character spoilers for the Perry Mason television series, specifically the first two seasons of the 1957 CBS series, and all of the 2020 HBO series, as well as serious spoilers for the first, 1933 novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws (see bibliography). I also refer to an important scene in the 2002 film Minority Report.

I just finished reading the first Perry Mason novel by Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Velvet Claws. It shows a Mason who is very different from the TV portrayals I've watched (and also from most of the next novels, according to Wikipedia). The prose is different than the dialogue in those works - very matter-of-fact, with a lot of repetition in the service of clarity, like a witness statement, or possibly the report of a private detective on watch. Mason admits that he doesn't always win, but he fights hard. He bends and even breaks the law in ways that would not be seen much after the first half of the first season of the `57 TV show. Even 2020 Mason would blush. Here, he doesn't care for corporate, real-estate, or inheritance law, the '57 Mason's bread and butter and the source of most of his clients, and something the 2020 Mason is seen as doing, although that is not the focus.

Della Street is protective of Mason, and there's a romantic tension that is broken at the end with physical affection - the '57 show Street is more focused on being Mason's friend and secretary with some vaguely hinted romantic undertone, while in the 2020 show she and Mason have no such interest in each other, and, additionally, are on a very even footing intellectually, and almost professionally - they started working for the same lawyer, and Street is the better educated in the Law, but in the 30s world it's set in, chronologically just before the novel's, Mason is the better face of the firm.

Mason's clients can sometimes be frustrating in the shows - but the one in this novel really tops them all. Eva Belter (alias Eva Griffin) goes as far as to try and frame him - and he, in turn, gets her to confess to the crime. Street, who has been antagonistic to this client throughout the book so far, is shocked at Mason seeming to sell out his own client; but in the end, he is able to use this to get at the real killer. You see, she only thought she killed her husband - she shot wildly and missed, and in a scene resembling a pivotal revelation in the film Minority Report, the real killed had the husband recreate the circumstances of the original shooting, only to coldly and accurately hit him through the heart with a bullet from the same gun.

Missing from this book are Lt. Arthur Tragg and DA Hamilton Berger, and indeed, Mason is able to resolve the whole thing without getting to trial.

Also missing from this book are scenes following the other characters, a staple of the television depictions. We follow Mason around everywhere. Unfortunately, we do not get his inner world, something a novel would have an easier time with than television. We see more of what is there and what is done, but have to conclude about people's intents and thoughts from what they say and do - as in real trials.