Gardner, Erle Stanley - The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece (1936)

Erle Stanley Gardner piles up the complications early on in this Perry Mason novel from 1936, when Mason was still a grinning, wise-cracking tough guy, at least part of the time.  In this one we have a millionaire with the bad habit of sleepwalking with a bloody carving knife in his hand; his beautiful, astrology buff niece; a hypochondriac, black-sheep-of-the-family half-brother; a golddigging ex-wife; a crackpot inventor who may be a crook; and assorted other hangers-on and shady characters.  Everybody winds up spending the night in the millionaire's Hollywood mansion, including Perry Mason, and in Gardner's version of an Agatha Christie/old English house sort of mystery, somebody winds up dead.  Mason's sleepwalking client is charged with the murder, so Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake plunge right in with the usual mix of snappy banter and questionable legal shenanigans to prove the client innocent and uncover the real murderer.

Gardner is in pretty good form in this one.  The story zips along really fast, the wisecracks are funny, and there are some nice long courtroom scenes in the final third of the book.  I had the murderer pegged pretty early on, which is unusual for me when it comes to Gardner's books.  I sometimes have trouble figuring out what happened even after Mason has explained everything.  But I've discovered over the years that for books that are so plot-heavy and supposedly light on characterization, it's not the plots I remember from them.  The fun is in the pace and dialogue and the interaction among Mason, Della, and Paul Drake.  And, of course, in watching Mason confound the long-suffering Hamilton Burger and Lt. Tragg (or in this case, Sergeant Holcomb, who hadn't been replaced by Tragg yet). The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece is only an average entry in the series but a perfectly enjoyable way to spend some time.

James Reasoner

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Before I ever read my first Perry Mason novel, I was familiar with the character from the TV series and from advertisements for The Detective Book Club on the back covers of some of the mystery magazines my father read.

There was a neighborhood sundries store my father, brother and I would occasionally go to after dinner a couple times a week if the weather were conducive, where we’d buy ice cream and/or candy, and where my father would purchase a paperback or two and I’d pick up some comic books. (I don’t recall what my brother bought.)  So one evening at the aforementioned store, at the age of 12, I noticed a paperback copy of Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Vagabond Virgin and handed it to my father to pay for. Thus began my Perry Mason obsession, which resulted in my reading another dozen titles one after the other. It was a good lesson about the pitfalls of binge-reading a particular author and series, because I became so oversaturated with Gardner’s style and approach in the Mason novels that it was years before I could read another one.

Eventually I read quite a few more--spreading them out over time. When I recently came upon an electronic copy of The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece, I realized that it had been at least 20 years, probably more, since I’d read a Perry Mason mystery, so I decided to reestablish my acquaintance.

The eighth title in the series, it begins when Mason is hired by Edna Hammer to speed up the divorce of her wealthy uncle, Peter Kent. His estranged wife Doris has suddenly tried to demonstrate a kind of renewed affection for Kent, who wants the divorce so he can marry Lucille Mays. Because Kent once picked up a butcher knife while sleepwalking, Doris was certain he wanted to kill her.

Adding to the story’s complications are the presences in the Kent mansion of, among others, Kent’s shady business partner, Frank Maddox; Maddox’s pettifogging lawyer, John Duncan; Philip Rease, Kent’s hypochondriacal half-brother; Gerald Harris, Edna’s fiancé; and Helen Warrington, Kent’s secretary.

When sometime around midnight--or was it later in the morning?--a figure is seen walking across a patio toward another entrance to the house where people are sleeping, and said figure appears to be holding a knife, and still later someone is found dead in bed, having been stabbed to death, the most likely suspect, and the party arrested, is Mason’s client. The questions confronting the lawyer: was Kent actually sleepwalking, was he pretending somnambulism to commit a murder, or was he framed by someone else? And if he was actually walking in his sleep, how to prove it.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Perry Mason knows the answer to some of those questions. I’m not going to answer them lest I spoil some of the book’s surprises, of which there are several. Having said so, I must also admit I found this one to be among the weaker entries in this classic series. Erle Stanley Gardner’s style in the Mason novels relies on lean narrative and an extensive use of dialogue to move the story along. But in The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece, there is too much talk and not enough action. It isn’t until Mason finally gets into the courtroom that the pace quickens a bit.

If you’re a Mason fan and have missed this one, you might want to read it for the sake of completeness. If you aren’t a completist, pass on it in favor of better entries in the series.

--Barry Ergang, January 2018