Classic hard boiled Perry Mason loveliness ( )

Found a 1946 first edition at a thrift store. Added to the charm of reading this clever mystery. Mason redefines thinking outside the box and since Garner was a lawyer he gets the technical stuff right, and is damn clever about it as well.

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Original price: $0.35. ( )

"Borrowed Brunette" had the craziest premise in the world, but was one of the more understandable and easy to follow Mason mysteries I've read so far. A woman looking to divorce her wealthy husband so she can marry another man learns her husband has hired detectives to shadow her to learn the identity of her boyfriend, so she has a friend hire a girl who looks like her to live in her apartment to throw the detectives off track. All is going splendidly until the friend turns up dead in the apartment, and the woman hired to impersonate her, along with her chaperone, are charged with the crime. The D.A. tries to get Perry in trouble with the Grand Jury for perjury, but of course the Grand Jury is to smart for that! Silly D.A., thinking he could get Perry in trouble! In the end it was actually a very logical suspect who was guilty: the woman's husband, who thought that the friend was actually the boyfriend. ( )