I read this for the 2015
Cloak and Dagger Mystery Reading Challenge
The Case of the
Borrowed Brunette – Erle Stanley Gardner
The 28th Perry Mason novel was published in
1946. Shortages of housing and certain goods suggest a post-WWII setting as
does the tough going of women trying to make it in a man’s world. For instance,
Helen Reedley is trying to get out of a marriage in which the husband holds the
economic whip hand besides being a controlling oaf. Also, working girl Eva
Martell, to make a few bucks and get noticed in Hollywood, accepts a job in
which she has to pose as another woman. Worried that she may be placed in
vulnerable position, she and her chaperone Adelle Winters consult crack attorney
Perry Mason.
The usual inevitabilities arise. A dodgy gambler turned
blackmailer is found with a bullet betwixt his eyes. The cops want to pin the killing
on Eva and Adelle just because they have an eyewitness report that Adelle put her gun – the murder gun - in a garbage pail.
The DA’s hatchet man is out to cut Mason down to size on legal technicalities
and secure the flamboyant lawyer’s disbarment. The outcome hinges on a
determination of when the crime was indeed committed, not when it seems to have
been committed.
But Gardner departs from the norm aplenty. Unexpectedly, familiar
characters such as Della Street, Lt. Tragg, and DA Ham Burger don’t play roles.
But there are many more suspects than the usual three or four, all of whom have
cool retro names: Orville L. Reedley, Cora Felton, Daphne Gridley, Carlotta
Tipton, Arthur Clovis and Helen Reedley. Mason and his PI Paul Drake have
extensive and complicated conversations exonerating the persons of interest.
Despite a lot of talk, this novel is one of the more exciting and entrancing outings purely on the basis of rational thinking. I mean, enthralling given the read accepts the initial premise of the impersonation, which, to my mind, often does not come off as convincing in whodunnits.
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