The Ides of Perry Mason 32

On the 15th of the month for the last two and a half years I've gone with a review of our fave lawyer. I'm wondering about ending this practice. But we'll see what happens (gag, remember Orange always used to say that - I feel I gotta a hair in my mouth....).

The Case of the Lazy Lover - Erle Stanley Gardner

- Give up Mrs. Allred as a client. Let some other attorney take this case into his own hands.

- Why?

- Because you have no chance of winning.

In this 1947 mystery, super lawyer Perry Mason receives two $2,500 checks from a woman he’s never heard of before, Lola Faxon Allred. Plus, the checks, worth about $30K in 2021 money, are drawn from two different banks. Perry and his office manager Della Street then find out one of the checks is forged.  Veteran readers of Gardner know that when there are two of anything – guns, illicit lovers - the Needle on the Complicated Plot Meter could spin right off the dial.

Bertrand C. Allred, a slick mining mogul who’s also Lola’s hubby, soon arrives at Mason's office. He tells the tale that his wife Lola – supposedly, in her late thirties, at a "dangerous age" - ran away with a much younger lover, Robert G. Fleetwood. Not only that - Fleetwood was Allred's right hand man and courted the daughter from Lola's first marriage. Allred is not afraid of a cross-generational romance or scandal, because he’s ready to divorce his wife.

But Fleetwood remains problematic. Knowing all the skeletons in all the closets, only Fleetwood can provide blockbuster testimony in a case against Allred's company in a lawsuit brought on by hard case. Bert needs to get in touch with the boyfriend-star witness Fleetwood, and pronto.

It soon turns out that the alleged lazy lover Fleetwood is not lazy at all, but is acting unmotivated and lethargic and blurry because he suffered amnesia as a result of car accident. Why was Allred lying? He can’t explain himself or his falsehoods, because he died in a car accident - or maybe on account of blows to the head, perhaps from a jack-handle wielded by poor Lola?

The "lazy lover case" is perhaps one of the most difficult cases in the career of the famous lawyer. Not only is Perry Mason's client Lola - which is customary - lying, but probably everyone associated with these events is lying. Mason is in a difficult position. Soon Lola Faxon-Allred is accused of murdering her husband. In the best intentions, though accidentally, this is also brought about by Mason himself. Tragg can’t let a chance to gloat pass him by: “This is the first time not only Perry Mason's client has a noose around her neck, but the great Perry Mason himself put it on her.”

The plot may seem a couple yards beyond confusing. There’s no courtroom climax.  but it's still the good old Gardner - with interesting twists, outstanding interrogation scenes, the reality of post-war America, typical of noir-light crime fiction, with a bit of humor and a surprising ending.

For fans of the series - a must-read.