Note: Gardner dedicates this 1953 story to Ralph F. Turner, author of Forensic Science and Laboratory Techniques, a publication that contributed to the field of Criminal Forensic Science. Turner's advances in the field of criminalistics added to the scholarly reputation of then Michigan State College, now my alma mater Michigan State University. The reveal of this mystery is, among Mason fandom, one of the most famous of all.
The Case of the Green-eyed Sister – Erle Stanley Gardner
What has poor old Ned Bain done to deserve such a troubled old age? He’s got the guilts on account of over-dutiful daughter Hattie who’s sacrificed her chance at a loving husband and family so she could nurse him and his dodgy heart. Instead of getting an honest job like any man should, his son Jarret has married rich and spends his wife’s money anthropologizing at ruins – i.e. fallen down buildings -- in the Yucatan. His daughter Sylvia is a loose-cannon manipulator and divorcee to boot. Snooty and cold Sylvia makes a poor impression on intuitive Della Street who sums up Sylvia with, "She'd cut your heart out for thirty-seven cents."
As if his children were not worry enough, a false friend, J.J. Fritch from their sketchy past, is trying to blackmail him. J.J. is threatening to tell the bank that Ned’s fortune is based on money stolen in a heist. Such a tale, of course, would wipe out the Bain family. Pal J.J. is using crooked PI Brogan to plague him. Daughter Sylvia goes to Perry Mason to get the family out from under its vulnerable position.
The actions careens around tight corners with the upshot
being Perry Mason finds himself having to defend daughter Hattie on a murder
charge. Who would have thought such a mousey woman would take a bad guy out
with an icepick?
Gardner has socially-conscious fun as Mason dissects questionable police procedure such as priming witnesses and not bothering to look for evidence because their "gut instinct" tells them they've got the perp. Police corner-cutting happens so often in Perry Mason novels that one wonders if Gardner got guff from cops and DA’s who didn’t like their short-cuts and thinking errors being publicized.
The trial scene in Chapter Fourteen, about 50 pages, is one of the longest in all the Mason novels. The reveal is clever and counts as one of the more famous endings among Mason fans. Mystery fans who like retro expressions (“lead pipe cinch”) will enjoy this readable story.
