Doug Bassett wrote:
>
> This will probably sound ridiculous to many of
you,
> but I actually read my very first Perry Mason not
so
> long ago -- THE CASE OF THE VAGABOND VIRGIN.
Gardner
> seems to me to be working in this same sort
of
> "semi-boiled" or "medium-boiled" niche --
something
> more than a cozy, but less than the full
hard-boiled
> treatment.
The early Perry Mason was a pretty hardboiled, coming
straight out of the Black Mask tradition, as he should, since
Gardner was one of the Mask's most popular contributers. In
the first Mason novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933),
he even carried a gun. Mason continued to be hardboiled for
the next few novels, but Gardner was setting his sights for
the slicks, and he worked hard to polish off the rough edges
of his pulp style. By 1948, when VIRGIN was written, he had
succeeded completely. I wouldn't call this an improvement
myself, but the millions of readers worldwide who bought
Gardner's books would no doubt disagree with me.
BobT
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