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Gramp Wiggens #2
The Case of the Smoking Chimney
The Case of the Smoking Chimney (G. K. Hall Nightingale Series Edition) [paperback] Gardner, Erle Stanley [Jun 01, 1990]
Paperback
Published January 1, 1990
About the author
Erle Stanley Gardner
1,429 books840 followersErle 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 14, 2018
I am experimenting by reading Perry Mason novels and I found this delightful old one in a used bookstore in New York. Gardner was an attorney and a fabulously productive novelist, producing more than 80 Perry Mason stories alone. He began writing crime and detective novels in the 1920s, then published his first Perry Mason in 1942 and wrote at an astounding rate of a book every month for the rest of his life. This one is not a Perry Mason mystery, but features an early detective character called Gramps Wiggins. “Gramps said, ‘No. I’m just sorta investigatin’. Of course, I don’t want to pry into your business none, but sometimes when a person talks things over with somebody else, it sorta gets things clear in their own minds, and they can answer questions better.” What a crafty old geezer! Gramps isn’t the star of the book, even though he solves the crime. I loved the devious woman character, Eva Raymond. “Eva Raymond was nobody’s fool, herself. Eva had been on her own ever since she was seventeen. She liked excitement, white lights, and the feeling of gambling with life.” I like mysteries that keep you guessing, flooding you with useful and useless details and forcing you to re-think your assumptions. Gardner was a master of his craft.
January 31, 2008
Who knew Erle Stanley Gardner wrote about detectives other than Perry Mason? This one features Gramps Wiggins. Pretty much standard Gardner mystery plot, but I miss Perry.
July 10, 2013
I have always loved the Perry Mason show. It inspired me to read the books. It is my dream to own the entire Erle Stanley Gardner collection one day.
September 19, 2018
Honestly this is my first Erle Stanley Gardner book. It was just luck of the draw for a stack I got from a thrift store as a place to start. I didn't have the first in the series of the Perry Mason and had no idea this would be a Gramp Wiggens mystery. I loved it. Taking up reading some 'matured' writing (older) I am thrilled with the writing and the plot from this older mystery book.
I see that many others did not like this story compared to the Perry Mason tales and so now I will find out the difference for myself. I found Gramp Wiggens refreshing and fun, that person we all or many of us dream of being. Smart, funny and living his way no matter the 'rules' of life. I thought it was wonderful how he takes it all in stride and seemingly doing it all in fun and to help.
The mystery was interesting enough and kept be wondering for a while...ok longer than normal really. I honestly think I got so wrapped in the writing I forgot to watch for clues...that makes for good reading in my mind.
There is more to life than the modern times and tales, this story in of itself and some of the clues teaches us that.
I see that many others did not like this story compared to the Perry Mason tales and so now I will find out the difference for myself. I found Gramp Wiggens refreshing and fun, that person we all or many of us dream of being. Smart, funny and living his way no matter the 'rules' of life. I thought it was wonderful how he takes it all in stride and seemingly doing it all in fun and to help.
The mystery was interesting enough and kept be wondering for a while...ok longer than normal really. I honestly think I got so wrapped in the writing I forgot to watch for clues...that makes for good reading in my mind.
There is more to life than the modern times and tales, this story in of itself and some of the clues teaches us that.
December 13, 2008
I fished a 1943 edition of this book out of a box of books a used book store owner was going to throw away, thinking it was a Perry Mason story. Instead, it features Gramps Wiggins, an energetic old man whom everyone thinks is daft. But of course he solves the mystery. Of course.
October 7, 2014
Gramp wiggins is a great character, and by their reactions to him his niece and her DA husband become much more three dimensional than most mystery/detective book stock characters.
February 11, 2018
good old gardner
February 11, 2021
This is Gramps Wiggins #2 (not a Perry Mason title). The only other Gramps Wiggins title is
The Case of the Turning Tide.
Major characters:
Ralph G. Pressman, oil speculator, a.k.a. Jack P. Reedley
Sophie Pressman, his cheating wife
Jane Graven, his secretary
Harvey L. Stanwood, his gambling bookkeeper
Eva Raymond, Harvey's girlfriend
Everett True, editor of The Petrie Herald
George Karper, Pressman's business partner
Hugh Sonders, rancher
Pellman Baxter, Sophie Pressman's man on the side
Frank Duryea, District Attorney
Milred Duryea, his wife
Gramps Wiggins, Milred's grandfather
Locale: California hill country
Synopsis: Long ago, a property owner divided up his large holdings in the hills, but inserted a clause in the deeds retaining oil rights. No one paid much attention, now the properties are all ranches. Ralph G. Pressman has bought up the oil rights and is beginning to move onto the properties, and the ranchers don't like it. They organize under Hugh Sonders, with the intent to have all the ranchers chip into a fund to buy the rights back from Pressman.
Meanwhile, Pressman's wife, Sophie Pressman, is having an affair with Pellman Baxter. Pressman suspects, and hires a detective agency to get the dirt. They get compromising photos and deliver them to Pressman's secretary, Jane Graven, but Sophie manages to steal them from Jane's desk.
Pressman wants to know what the ranchers' plans are, so he moves into a dilapidated chicken farm, posing as Jack P. Reedley, and waits for Sonders to show up with his appeal. Sonders and local editor Everett True come out to the chicken farm but Reedley won't open the door. Later, they return and find Reedley dead on the floor, a gun in his hand, an oil lamp still lit (the lamp's chimney is the chimney of the title).
D.A. Frank Duryea is notified of the death at the same time his wife's crusty hermit grandfather, Gramps Wiggins, shows up with his homemade trailer. Together they go to the scene. Gramps uses his old-time knowledge of oil lamps to help find the killer.
Review: This second Gramps Wiggins novel is vastly superior to the first. Gardner has given up on his experimental attempt at relating a strict chronological order of events and instead uses his familiar parallel-action plotting strategies of the Perry Mason novels. For example, the first six chapters are all in a parallel format, each introducing one of the six main characters, detailing what they are doing at the same exact moment the story begins. It is effective in setting the scene and introducing the characters.
Gardner uses one of his favorite plot devices: interpreting clues left by candles, lanterns, lamps, etc.
Gramps is still a hard-drinking no-nonsense hermit, but the comedic side of him is gone. He works around the edges of the investigation, in a more careful and deliberate manner than in the first novel.
It is regrettable there were no further Gramps novels, but similar characters exist in his pulp-era short stories which are always fun to seek out if you are looking for some desert flavor.
Major characters:
Ralph G. Pressman, oil speculator, a.k.a. Jack P. Reedley
Sophie Pressman, his cheating wife
Jane Graven, his secretary
Harvey L. Stanwood, his gambling bookkeeper
Eva Raymond, Harvey's girlfriend
Everett True, editor of The Petrie Herald
George Karper, Pressman's business partner
Hugh Sonders, rancher
Pellman Baxter, Sophie Pressman's man on the side
Frank Duryea, District Attorney
Milred Duryea, his wife
Gramps Wiggins, Milred's grandfather
Locale: California hill country
Synopsis: Long ago, a property owner divided up his large holdings in the hills, but inserted a clause in the deeds retaining oil rights. No one paid much attention, now the properties are all ranches. Ralph G. Pressman has bought up the oil rights and is beginning to move onto the properties, and the ranchers don't like it. They organize under Hugh Sonders, with the intent to have all the ranchers chip into a fund to buy the rights back from Pressman.
Meanwhile, Pressman's wife, Sophie Pressman, is having an affair with Pellman Baxter. Pressman suspects, and hires a detective agency to get the dirt. They get compromising photos and deliver them to Pressman's secretary, Jane Graven, but Sophie manages to steal them from Jane's desk.
Pressman wants to know what the ranchers' plans are, so he moves into a dilapidated chicken farm, posing as Jack P. Reedley, and waits for Sonders to show up with his appeal. Sonders and local editor Everett True come out to the chicken farm but Reedley won't open the door. Later, they return and find Reedley dead on the floor, a gun in his hand, an oil lamp still lit (the lamp's chimney is the chimney of the title).
D.A. Frank Duryea is notified of the death at the same time his wife's crusty hermit grandfather, Gramps Wiggins, shows up with his homemade trailer. Together they go to the scene. Gramps uses his old-time knowledge of oil lamps to help find the killer.
Review: This second Gramps Wiggins novel is vastly superior to the first. Gardner has given up on his experimental attempt at relating a strict chronological order of events and instead uses his familiar parallel-action plotting strategies of the Perry Mason novels. For example, the first six chapters are all in a parallel format, each introducing one of the six main characters, detailing what they are doing at the same exact moment the story begins. It is effective in setting the scene and introducing the characters.
Gardner uses one of his favorite plot devices: interpreting clues left by candles, lanterns, lamps, etc.
Gramps is still a hard-drinking no-nonsense hermit, but the comedic side of him is gone. He works around the edges of the investigation, in a more careful and deliberate manner than in the first novel.
It is regrettable there were no further Gramps novels, but similar characters exist in his pulp-era short stories which are always fun to seek out if you are looking for some desert flavor.
January 8, 2018
#2 in the Gramps Wiggins series. Simple little 2 book series in which the D.A. of a rural CA county has a wife with a peripatetic grandfather who shows up to stick his nose into solving mysteries. While it is amusing and entertaining to follow the codger around as he helps disperse some of the abundant red herrings, the problem with this minor mystery is that there are too many unresolved plot lines. Period color is added to this 1943 wartime mystery with talk of sugar and rubber rationing.
A crafty businessman arrives incognito in a small town, where he takes up residence at a cabin. Using another name he starts buying up property. When he is found dead in his mountain cabin there is no shortage of suspects. Amateur detective Gramps Wiggins has to piece together the clues.
A crafty businessman arrives incognito in a small town, where he takes up residence at a cabin. Using another name he starts buying up property. When he is found dead in his mountain cabin there is no shortage of suspects. Amateur detective Gramps Wiggins has to piece together the clues.
April 25, 2021
This was my first Erle Stanley Gardner book, though I’ve been a Perry Mason fan for as long as I can remember. This book, however, doesn’t involve my favorite TV lawyer. This one features an amateur detective “Gramps” who I didn’t care for at all. He just got in the way with his silly investigation. This was a quick, easy-to-read mystery.
June 6, 2019
Lightweight mystery, like a Nancy Drew for adults, starring Gramp Wiggins. By today’s legal standards, there’d be no chance for a conviction, because of witness tampering, chain of evidence, jurisdiction differences, etc.
September 24, 2017
My first Gramps Wiggin, this was a purely detective story with no legal angle. I missed Perry Mason and the others. There were too many players with too many red herrings, many obvious.
October 10, 2017
Nice premise for the mystery but the rest of it is pretty flat. Also, Gramp Wiggins is a stupid character.
February 19, 2021
Not Perry Mason, but Gramps is a character
January 9, 2023
Fun quick easy read.
November 28, 2023
Fun quick read.
June 11, 2024
A fun quick read. I was surprised to find that Perry Mason had no part in this book. Gramp Wiggens was new to me. Lots of fun.
November 25, 2020
I really like the Gramp character and wish Gardner had used him more. The story of where Gramp develops from in the beginning is a nifty tale.
The book early on lays out the subjects at hand. This is quite a shift from Gardner's two main series. The tale then plays games with characters and then Gramp and his son-in-law enter the investigation. From that point on the story becomes more lively and much more interesting as Gramp wanders here and there and stumbles into this and that. All the while much else occurring and other investigations and more happening. There are a lot of moving parts here, but a relatively satisfying ending. I think Gardner did not write the ending well and could have smooth out and made is all clearer for readers.
Characters are all very well written. Settings are also excellent. Dialogue is well done, too.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 7 out of ten points.
The book early on lays out the subjects at hand. This is quite a shift from Gardner's two main series. The tale then plays games with characters and then Gramp and his son-in-law enter the investigation. From that point on the story becomes more lively and much more interesting as Gramp wanders here and there and stumbles into this and that. All the while much else occurring and other investigations and more happening. There are a lot of moving parts here, but a relatively satisfying ending. I think Gardner did not write the ending well and could have smooth out and made is all clearer for readers.
Characters are all very well written. Settings are also excellent. Dialogue is well done, too.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 7 out of ten points.
Want to Read
October 30, 2018Synopsis: a man arrives incognito in a town and starts buying property. When he is found dead, amateur detective Gramps looks at the clues.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews