The
Case of the Daring Decoy – Erle Stanley Gardner
It is 1957. Oil Man Jerry Conway is embroiled in a proxy fight
with an ex-employee Gifford Farrell. We know Farrell is a cad because he has a
debonair manner and a pencil-thin moustache. Jerry stumbles into a trap
involving a room in a threadbare hotel, a beautiful woman dressed in not much
more than a mudpack. Hubba - as they used to say - hubba.
She coughs up a recently fired .38 to Conway before he hustles the
heck out of there. Later in the same room Perry and Paul Drake discover the
body of another comely woman with a bullet in her chest, fired – of course - by
the same gun.
Is the frame-up of Jerry perfectamundo? Will DA Hamilton Burger
hang a rap of accessory to murder on Perry?
One distinguishing point is that Della Street appears in only a
couple of scenes but one with a chivalrous Perry is a humdinger.
A new one to me, though I seem to recall another one with an oil man.
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