McGinnis Nine-Nine: “The Case of the Cautious Coquette”

Part of a celebration of Robert McGinnis’ XCIXth birthday.



The Case of the Cautious Coquette, by Erle Stanley Gardner
(Pocket, 1963).

Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason was certainly the most famous fictional criminal defense attorney of the 20th century, appearing in 82 novels, so it was only to be expected that the prolific Robert McGinnis would have illustrated at least some fronts for the paperback reissues of those books. In fact, he painted more than two dozen of them, in eye-catching colors and boasting women of conspicuous comeliness.

The Case of the Cautious Coquette was Gardner’s 34th novel about his incredibly successful Los Angeles attorney. The following plot summation comes from the PaperBack Swap Blog:

Mason is seeking witnesses to the hit-and-run accident that left his client (a poor college kid) with a broken hip and his mother (a widow) all shook up. Complexity rears its head after a newspaper ad yields two drivers of two suspected vehicles and eventually two settlements for one accident. Mason is further astonished when found shot to death in a garage is a chauffeur that turns out to be the driver of one of the guys who settled. In typical Dickensian-Gardnerian fashion, the vic was named Hartwell L. Pitken.

Attractive and cunning Lucille Barton wants Mason to represent her in an alimony action, which he declines since he doesn’t do divorce cases. But Mason is with Lucille when Pitkin’s body is found in the garage of her apartment building. Mason directs her to report the body to the police and then leaves. Just like his usual conniving client, Lucille doesn’t make the call and a neighbor provides a positive ID of the hottie, but is less sure of Mason. To avoid having to answer awkward questions from the police, Perry decides to cite attorney-client privilege. This lands him with a client he doesn’t want, so he has to prove her innocence when she is arrested for [the] murder of the driver.

In a rare linking of talents and resources, Homicide Detective [Arthur] Tragg and Mason join forces. Tragg’s rival on the force, Sgt. Holcomb, throws Tragg under the bus, so Tragg gratefully takes a tip from Mason. He cheers – silently, of course – when Mason tricks Holcomb and a witness into a false identification and makes Holcomb look like a big dummy in court. Mason and Tragg are even involved in a car chase, a rarity in the Mason novels.

Curtains—of the shower variety and others—pop up occasionally in McGinnis’ work, typically concealing the anatomy of fetching females. This particular front, however, seems to have been inspired by a somewhat more revealing 1949 jacket of the same novel.