The Case Of The Crimson Kiss by Erle Stanley GardnerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a collection of 5 short stories. The Crimson Kiss, a Perry Mason story, is the longest of them. The others have a random cast of characters.
I enjoyed this collection. I've only read a little by Erle Stanley Gardner, and so far I like him pretty well. I'm not a lover of the genre, I'll admit, but I'm trying to give it a chance, and these are pretty entertaining. I wouldn't call this noir, nor is it super gritty. Realistic, let's say, but not depressing. Another thing I like is that they're not too long but they are still complete. There is no ambiguous ending like you find with many types of short stories, whether fantasy or literary or whatever. This isn't just a vibe; it's a self-contained story, with a beginning, middle, and end. There's a mystery, an investigation, and a resolution where we know who did it. (The bad guys might get caught or they might get away, but we know what happened.) That tidy completeness is satisfying, and the brevity means the story doesn't overstay its welcome.
The stories were written in a period stretching from the late 20s into the 40s. Some of what I found intriguing was how modern much of it seemed despite the years separating the author and the reader, something I've noticed with Gardner before. (The lack of cell phones is probably the most notable difference from the present. Cars and planes and roads and guns and cops and people all feel pretty similar to today, though.)
Anyway, if you like old-fashioned crime novels, you don't need me to tell you about Gardner or his most famous creation, Perry Mason. If, like me, you're just wanting to try the genre out, this author is a great place to start.
Now I think I need to track down some of the grittier stuff from that era. Just to see.
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