The D.A. Cooks a Goose

Doug Selby #5

by Erle Stanley Gardner

A California D.A. handles a case of a baby lost and another found in this classic hard-boiled mystery by the author of the Perry Mason series.

"The bestselling author of the century . . . a master storyteller." —The New York Times

A late-night hit-and-run accident claims an infant's life on a steep mountain road outside Madison City. What puzzles District Attorney Doug Selby is that the other car was stolen, driven out of town and back, and returned to the same spot . . .

Then Selby receives a phone call from the bus depot. A woman claims she and her baby are in danger. When Selby and Sheriff Rex Brandon arrive at the depot, they find the child, but her mother is nowhere in sight. Their investigation leads to a hidden treasure in the cabin of a hermit, whose sister and brother-in-law own the stolen car.

But when a body is found and more questions arise, Selby deduces the best way to catch the killer is to stop looking. Instead, he will make the killer come to him . . .

Originally published in 1942.

Genres: Mystery

188 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories who also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray, and Robert Parr.

Innovative and restless in his nature, he was bored by the routine of legal practice, the only part of which he enjoyed was trial work and the development of trial strategy. In his spare time, he began to write for pulp magazines, which also fostered the early careers of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. He created many different series characters for the pulps, including the ingenious Lester Leith, a "gentleman thief" in the tradition of Raffles, and Ken Corning, a crusading lawyer who was the archetype of his most successful creation, the fictional lawyer and crime-solver Perry Mason, about whom he wrote more than eighty novels. With the success of Perry Mason, he gradually reduced his contributions to the pulp magazines, eventually withdrawing from the medium entirely, except for non-fiction articles on travel, Western history, and forensic science.

See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erle_Sta...

Reviews

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#5 in the Doug Selby series. Author Gardner, more famous for his Perry Mason series, has crafted a shorter series featuring D.A. Doug Selby in a rural California community not far from L.A. In this enjoyable 1942 series entry, the goal seems to be to develop a plot as complicated as possible. Old Ezra dying in the hospital calls for Selby to lock up his cabin. He dies before Selby arrives to get the keys. There's a small fortune hidden in the cabin, but was there a larger one? There is an estranged wife and infant daughter in the picture, she has a contract with a man to pursue a divorce from Ezra, she also has a nanny with an infant of her own,Ezra's sister and brother-in-law appear from Louisiana, several characters have engaged the legal services of Doug's nemesis A.B. Carr, and the rest are being represented by ex-lover Inez Stapleton. And what about the murder? Fun read!

Doug Selby series - A car smashup! A hidden fortune! An abandoned baby! A dead miser! A forged will with plenty of relatives hungry for money! These are just some of the surprises that D.A. Doug Selby runs up against when he begins to solve the brutal murder of a beautiful heiress.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

My dad used to read this author's books when I was young. He didn't read much fiction, and he worked so much, that I always thought they must've been very good if he took the time to read them.

Recently, someone I knew was throwing this extremely scruffy copy away. It was only 189 pages, so I thought, why not, it'll be a quick read, I'll try it now.

I initially struggled a little with the language, but about 10 pages in I was hooked. This is one twisty, turny, whodunnit. Kept me guessing till the end. Now I can see why my Dad read him.

Erle Stanley Gardner goes into my list of ' authors to read' right alongside Elmore Leonard.

[Rick Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

Major characters:

Mrs. --- Hunter, a widow, in a car accident
Baby Mary Hunter, her infant daughter, died in the accident
Terry Blossten of Louisiana, owner of the car which hit the Hunters
Mrs. Sadie Grolley Blossten, his wife
Ezra Grolley, miser hermit, Sadie's Grolley's brother
Alice Grolley, Ezra's wife for a short period, then a murder victim
Baby Ruth Grolley, their infant daughter, left in the bus station
Jackson Teel, a gambler
Margaret Faye, hitchhiker, was in the Hunter car

Doug Selby, D.A.
Sheriff Rex Baldwin,
Otto Larkin, Chief of Police
Sylvia Martin, crime reporter for The Clarion
Inez Stapleton, Selby's old girlfriend, now attorney for Sadie Grolley
A.B. Carr, attorney for Mrs. Hunter and Alice Grolley

Locale: Madison City, California

Synopsis: Mrs. -- Hunter, her baby daughter Mary, and hitchhiker Margaret Faye are riding on a mountain road when their car is hit by another. The Hunter car rolls down an embankment, and baby Mary dies.

The car which hit them was reported stolen. It belongs to Terry and Sadie Blossten of Louisiana. They are in the area to visit Sadie's ailing hermit brother, Ezra Grolley. Ezra is separated from his young wife Alice and their infant daughter Ruth. Ezra passes away in the hospital.

Alice and Ruth were waiting in a bus station when Ruth is called to the phone. She is apparently abducted, leaving the baby behind. D. A. Doug Selby and Sheriff Rex Baldwin enlists the help of Baldwin's wife to care for the baby while they search for Alice. Alice is eventually discovered murdered.

Ezra's shack is found ransacked, and it appears he had hidden away a fortune, now missing, but leaving behind a suspicious will.

Mrs. Hunter and Sadie Grolley lawyer up. Hunter retains sleazy A. B. Carr, and Sadie Grolley Blossten retains Inez Stapleton, Selby's former flame and current grudge-holder.

A fight over Ezra's will is looming between his sister (Sadie) and - now that his wife is dead - his infant daughter who would be next to inherit. It appears the car accident may have been staged in an estate grab.

Review: I have read that this Doug Selby series offers more of an experience than the Perry Masons - more character development and depth than the assembly line Masons, and I agree. The D.A. Selby is our protagonist, quite the opposite of the Masons, and he is more thoughtful, well rounded, and less likely to be the tough guy. And he certainly is not in a position to juggle evidence like you-know-who.

Whenever ESG goes off on technical details of investigations, it is always fascinating and has the ring of truth for technology of the time. In this series, Selby has the opportunity to introduce technical subjects - while in the Masons, they are usually placed in the Foreword as a dedication to a particular person. Here we have two technical topics explored: how an Examiner of Questioned Documents works, and how blood spatters tell a story.

Whenever a ESG story has two similar-appearing people, or twins, you can always tell the old switcheroo is coming, and this story - with two similar women each having a same-age baby, is no exception.

One cringe-worthy element, though: this is the second time in the Selby series we have attorney Inez Stapleton crying, an unnecessary, non-professional stereotype.

[Thom Swennes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hit and run accident that leaves a small baby dead and a murdered mother in an abandoned house are linked in some mysterious way. This is a mystery that District Attorney Douglas Selby has to solve. A local recluse and miser, Ezra Grolley dies, leaving behind a wife and infant daughter no one even knew he had. When a baby is discovered abandoned at a Greyhound Bus station and Alice Grolley is discovered dead apparently through blunt force trauma, the stage is set for Erle Stanley Gardner to work his magic.

Erle Stanley Gardner is best known and remembered for creating the Perry Mason character. Mason is a successful defense attorney that wins his cases, not only by proving his client innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt but also exposes the murderer; tying everything up neatly with a bow. This story is written from an entirely different perspective; that of the D.A.
This book was first published in1943 and the culture change is both nostalgic and evocative. The regression of social standards and customs are now almost shocking. Everyone smokes (cigarettes, cigars, and pipes) literally everywhere. Crime scene investigation and the collecting, transporting, and securing evidence are almost laughable. The closest the reader gets to a courtroom is a coroner’s inquest. If you think that I anathematize this story from the distant past, you would be completely wrong; I applaud any story that has beaten the test of time. Seventy-four years have just added a uniquely smoky essence to a delightful “who done it” tale.

[Serdar Poirot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Selby, Hunter adında bir kadının kızını kaybettiği kazayı araştırmaktadır. Kazayı yapan araba Blossten ailesine ait olup çalındığını iddia etmiştir. Blossten ailesi hasta olan kardeşi Ezra Grolley'e ziyarete gelmiştir. Bu sırada bir telefon gelir. Alice Grolley olduğunu iddia eden bir kadın kaçırıldığını be bebeğinin kurtarılmasını istediğini söyler. Otobüs durağına gidince bir bebek bulur ve Rex Brandon'un eşi çocuğa bakmaya başlar. Inez Stapleton, Blossten ailesinin, A. B. Carr ise Hunter ve Alice Grolley'in avukatı olur. Ezra hastanede ölür. Evinde yapılan araştırmada ciddi miktarda para bulunur. Blossten ailesi vaziyete göre paranın kendilerine ait olduğunu söyler. Ama vasiyet yoktur. Doug, Rex ile vasiyeti bulunca sahte olduğu da ortaya çıkar. Bu arada Alice'in cesedi de ortaya çıkar. Her şey küçük kıza kalacak gibi durmaktadır. Blossten ailesi kayıptır. Margaret Faye adında bir otostopçu ilk duruşmada etkili bir ifade verir. Kazayı görmüştür. Bir tuzak kuran Doug Selby, Teddy Blossten'i yakalar. Ama serbest bırakır. Polis şefi Otto Larkin'e de gelişmeler Hakkında bilgi verir ama o her zmanakş gibi çift taraflı oynamaktadır. Sonra çocuğu saklar. Hunter gelir ve her şey ortaya çıkar. Hunter ile Alice arasındaki ilişki nedir? Ölen çocuk kimin çocuğudur? Alice Ezra'dan önce mi ölmüştür? Jackson Teel adlı kumarbaz neden çocuğun velayetini almayı bu kadar istemektedir? A. B. Carr bu işten yakasını sıyırabilecek midir? Keyifle okunan bir roman.

[Steven desJardins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erle Stanley Gardner is of course most famous for writing mysteries from the perspective of a defense lawyer, but he believed in diversifying and also published a series about a pair of private detectives comprising around thirty novels and wrote nine with a District Attorney as the protagonist. In terms of the appeal of the characters and formulae he pretty much had his priorities straight. This is a decent mystery from a good writer, worth a couple hours once you've polished off all the Perry Masons.

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The missing money is not recovered? Gardner makes a big mistake there. This is otherwise an enjoyable medium-boiled mystery.

[Dean Anderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read and enjoyed many books in the Perry Mason series as well as the Cool and Lamb but this book was as dull as dirt. Having a baby killed as part of the plot does not add to the fun.

[Ashwin Dongre · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is alright. An accident, a murder, one death and plenty of jumbled testimonies & perjuries, the usual Doug Selby books formula! Its plenty confusing plot and mystery well maintained. Too well maintained I’d say. The clues are overly hidden, to the point of cheating. And as usual Selby gets a brainwave when he solves the mystery, even though there are no clues, read it again, no clues to provide to even guess what exactly had happened. There are only hints. Its very clear from the beginning that the sequence of events is not clear, the real explaination of the blood splats, Teel’s alibi... and so on. But none of them give any clues as to what exactly happened. So Selby continues to get the brainwave, just as Inez continues to make fool of herself (this time bigger than the first), the bashing-glory balance continues not to be maintained in this book as well, old ABC manages to go out of clutches of the law. What exactly happens to the dug out money? Was that ever clearly explained (except for the hint?) or is it only me?

As again, no courtroom drama. Having been halfway through the D.A. series, I dont think I should expect to happen in any further Doug Selby novels.

All in all, this is yet another typical Doug Selby novel. Good to read, keeps you glued till the end....

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old school mystery. Fun reading the old stuff.

[Victoria Mixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gardner wrote his D.A. series under his own name, his about-face on the Perry Mason model of maverick lawyer going up against the boring, stupid, stick-in-the-mud District Attorney Ham Burger (yes, that's really his name). In the D.A. series it's D.A. Doug Selby who's the upholder of all that is good and decent and the maverick lawyer A. B. Carr who's a cheeseball.

This one's great for the sheriff's wife, who lays down the law not only to her husband but to D.A. Selby. She honestly ought to have been the one in law enforcement, but it would have interfered with her real life.

Again, women who knew each other in San Francisco follow each other to the D.A.'s town to wreak havoc with each other's lives. Again, you aren't supposed to know they knew each other before. And there are two baby girls---yeah, that coincidence matters.

Also: keep track of characters' initials.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Over the years I've probably read most of the books in Gardner's long Perry Mason series, but I'm not sure I've read any others before in his shorter, less famous D.A. series. Doug Selby, a D.A. in rural Southern California, is in effect a clone of Perry Mason but working the other side of the aisle: he's a babe magnet of fundamental decency who's not averse to shaving the edges of the law if the result justifies it. In this book he sorts out a complicated entanglement involving an inheritance, murder, a marriage that should never have been, and more. As always with Gardner, it's a fast, fun read that doesn't leave much of an impression behind it.

[Heron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hilarious per usual, Mr. Gardner. You're quite the niche writer.

[Ruthmgon · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK. new characters not Perry Mason, but still good.

[Tobie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, solid mystery. I really enjoyed the book. I found the characters quite interesting.