The 15th of every month until I don't know when I will post a review of a Perry Mason mystery. For the hell of it.
The Case of the Spurious Spinster – Erle Stanley Gardner
The Perry Mason novels written in the late Fifties and early Sixties are sometimes organized like the vintage TV episodes featuring the super-lawyer. That is, the action opens with a plucky working girl just trying to do her best - what anybody would do - in a set of circumstances full of unpredictable factors. The situation deteriorates to the point where the shrewd but scared protagonist is driven to consult Perry Mason, who suspects a scam has put his client in a legally vulnerable position.
In this one, a modest secretary, Susan Fisher, suspects her boss of funny business when the boss’ young son comes into the office with a shoebox full of benjamins. Also, the owner of the company – the kind of blunt astute business woman Gardner respected – disappears along with accounting evidence that somebody has been peculating the profits. Seeing herself in legal jeopardy, Susan consults Perry Mason.
So, the first chapter of this 1961 mystery is one of the longest set-ups in the Gardner canon of 80-some Perry Mason novels. Usually I would feel impatient with this (I like a vic right away in a mystery), but Gardner, employing narrative magic in a story of thievery, kidnapping, and subterfuge, builds suspense by getting us veteran fans wondering when the heck the murder is coming off and who is going to be the vic. When Perry and Della finally come upon a grisly corpse, the tension is almost unbearable.
The trial sequence is thus delayed and seems a tad rushed. Though dour Detective Tragg and Perry have some fine exchanges, DA Hamilton Burger does not get a chance to make his usual exasperated outburst.
Other exceptional scenes: Della uses her femininity to open up a crusty prospector and Paul flatly predicts, “The evidence points so unerringly and so damningly that there isn’t a ghost of a chance she’s innocent. And what’s more, I’m betting that within twenty-four hours Amelia Corning’s body will be discovered somewhere and you’ll find your client charged with another murder.” Boy, you’d think after 60-some novels (this was published in 1961), Paul would have as much faith in Perry as Della does.
As we fans do….
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