FFB Review: THE CASE OF THE SLEEPWALKER’S NIECE (1936) by Erle Stanley Gardner (Reviewed by Barry Ergang)

After taking last week off for obvious reasons and thank you for all your thoughts, prayers, condolences, and messages, FFB returns today with another all new review from Barry Ergang. This week he considers a piece of the Perry mason canon. After you read Barry’s review, head over to Todd Mason's blog for other reading suggestions. 

THE CASE OF THE SLEEPWALKER’S NIECE (1936) by Erle Stanley Gardner

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

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.) As I mentioned in my review of a modern Hardy Boys book, Secret of the Red Arrow, I had begun at age 11 to read mystery fiction aimed at adults. 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.

© 2018 Barry Ergang

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