Mount TBR #19

I read this book for the Mount TBR 2018 Reading Challenge.

The Case of the Black-eyed Blonde – Erle Stanley Gardner

“The lawyer is like a doctor,” says ace lawyer Perry Mason to his PA Della Street, “only for justice.”

Perry Mason sees a gamut of iffy clients in his office - but Diana Regis is probably one of the strangest. She arrives in the famous attorney’s office clad only in a fur coat and a dressing gown, besides the shiner of the title. It turns out that she was on a date she had been pressured into – with her employer’s stepson. When she refused the stepson’s advances, with an impunity banal for entitled men in 1944, he tossed her out of the car, forcing her to hike home. When they met again at the house (she’d been living with her employer’s family), he hauled off and smacked her like he was well-practiced in hitting women in the face. On top of this abuse, he got his mother to accuse Diana of a theft. Seeing herself in a vulnerable position, she hoofed it over to the office of Perry Mason. The case is brutal enough to bother Perry and Della, but at the same time easily handled with Perry’s deft questioning that shows the stepson to be a lying little turd. Everything is quickly resolved – the alleged theft can be explained, Diana Regis receives handsome compensation. And when - seemingly – the door can be shut on a nasty incident, the plot gets thicker and thicker.

Diana's roommate, Mildred Danville, dies. There is no doubt it was a murder. Mildred was found, shot, in soil soaked with rain. Evidence seems to indicate that Diana pulled the trigger. But the puzzles come one on top of another. Why did Helen Bartsler (a war widow who apparently was close to the victim) not tell the whole truth to Perry? Where is Mildred's diary, which could explain a lot? And finally - was the tap on the rainwater cistern open or closed?

This is a good detective story. The twists are intricate, the action doesn’t let you to break away for dinner, and the dueling between the upholders of the criminal justice system and Perry, Della and PI Paul Drake Street is played for high stakes. They will stand behind the client, come what may. Perry Mason - as in every book in the series - cajoles the police into acting against their inclinations. In this one he goes around them astonishingly, acquiring physical evidence in an audacious way. He also has to explode his own client's lies and finally protect her from conviction.

The story is extremely dramatic - much more than in other novels of this series – perhaps because of the effect WWII was having on the public morale by 1944. The lingering fallout of the Pearl Harbor attack is still being felt with the Bartsler family gravely affected by the loss of an only son. Loss and grieving bring out not only the better angels of human nature, but the crooks and scam artists and other lookers out for number one. Material life has been affected too. Paul Drake doesn’t want Perry to drive his car because Mason’s speeding and sharp turns will cause too much wear and tear on his tires, which are hard to replace due to rubber shortages. Rainwater is caught in cisterns so it can be used as a source of soft water for doing laundry and washing one’s hair.

Anyway, long-time readers of this blog will know I read too much Gardner, but this one really is exceptional.