3 crampons out of 5

HCC 03

“Top of the Heap” is one of the more misleading HCC books, where the inability to pitch it directly means you gotta’ drum up a tag line and cover to match the genre.  It comes to us from Erle Stanley Gardner, whom were told created Perry Mason, and the likeness is there – baffling logic leaps and abundance of characters that would work in television falter a bit on the page.  But it’s still an enjoyable romp, one of the more lighthearted HCC books that doesn’t feel like you’re reading a dirty dimestore pulp, but rather something that, fifty years ago, would’ve flown into your collection as a sweet escape.

Cool and Lam are a duo detective agency featured in several books by Gardner (written under the name A. A. Fair).  ‘Top of the Heap’ has a comfortable feel with the characters, but as a later entry in the series is a little off-putting – Bertha Cool is an imposing, mean figure, and a partnership that I’m sure was cultivated in earlier books here seems like an ongoing joke – Bertha is money hungry and mean, Donald Lam solves the cases.  Thankfully this is a small part of events.

When a client wants the agencies help in verifying an alibi during the disappearance of a mobster’s girlfriend, Donald senses that the pieces fall into place a bit too easily, and so begins investigating why this client might be after an alibi.  We start with a disappearance, then go to some stock swindling, and underground gambling… Gardner was certainly open-minded in his plotting, and it’s pretty exciting to follow Donald from one clue to the next, truly uncertain how the case will blossom.  To this extent the writing is swift and quick, making the majority of the banter and interrogations fun to read.

Have you seen Trading Places?  Me too.  Now I consider myself a smart guy, but the stock portion of that movie never ceases to confuse me a bit.  Maybe because I couldn’t care less about stocks, who knows.  The same issue creeps in here.  Gardner starts adding layers onto his story, and then interrogations turn into page long explanations, and our lead jumps from A to C ‘logically’ several times in an attempt to keep things moving.  It’s enough to make your eye gloss over during these scenes, but Lam gets us out of it quick enough to move toward the ending.

Had I not known Gardner would work in TV, I don’t know how I would’ve received this book.  Had it not been part of the HCC, I doubt I would’ve picked it up.  And it’s apparent the publisher jumped at the opportunity of a name but was uncertain how to promote it, as the cover and tag line push a girl in danger angle that’s not really the main part of the book.  Still, this is a good balance between best seller detective fare and old school noir to merit a couple days to read.

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