Monday, September 7, 2015

Vintage Mystery #18



I read this book for the Vintage Mystery Bingo Reading Challenge 2015. The challenge is to read 6 or more Vintage Mysteries. All novels must have been originally written between 1960 and 1989 inclusive and be from the mystery category.

I read this for the category L-2, “Made into a TV show”

This 1962 novel was made into an episode of Perry Mason first broadcast on January 23, 1964.

The Case of the Ice-Cold Hands – Erle Stanley Gardner

This 1962 Perry Mason novel is readable enough for a lazy Sunday afternoon in late summer. But the story is so-so. We’ve also seen before the victim that nobody will mourn and the attractive client with her pants on fire from telling so many whoppers.

A point in its favor is that Gardner shows that he did his homework when it came to keeping current in the field, since he uses a law, newly passed in California in the early 1960s, that allowed a DA to grant complete immunity in exchange for testimony that would incriminate the witness. 

Some critics and readers dislike the Perry Mason novels written in the 1960s. Others say that the mysteries written in the 1950s represent a falling off. Still others say the novels written before WWII are better than the ones written after.

Me, I can read them all, as long as heat and humidity make it impossible for me to read harder novels.

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