Watching the HBO miniseries, never read any (as I am not an old school mystery guy, generally) and haven't seen the Raymond Burr series (not that old, people), so got a few of these from the public library. Your tax dollars at work, support your local library. Interesting read, almost all dialogue, as though originally written for radio. Fairly entertaining, in a try-and-figure-it-out kind of way. Will read the other two I've got, although I'm not going to go all completionist. ( )

Usually you know who had been killed early enough in the Perry Mason novels - or at least you can suspect. 1/3rd into this novel, noone had died yet and there was no way to see what is coming.

It all started with two checks for 25 hundred dollars each - received with consecutive mail deliveries (more than one delivery per day reminds you just how different the world we live in is), both from the same person, both with no notes attached but from different banks. That of course makes Perry suspicious - and before long it is clear that one of the checks is forged. Which makes our lawyer even more convinced that he wants to understand what is going on.

And then things get a bit weird - a car that had hit something, a married woman that had ran away with her husband's assistant and a woman that pretends to be someone else. Nothing unusual for Mason, right? Of course at some point there is also a body, a man with amnesia (seemingly caused by a hit of the head but ascribed to shell shock at some point - reminding me again how soon after the end of the war this novel is) and another crashed car (this one is really not good for the cars). There is also a farmer that seems sincere and the constant whining of Paul Drake.

It's a story of misdirection and lies - everyone lies and when someone's lie sounds better, other people decide to support it with their own even more elaborate one. And in an already familiar pattern, when a stupid policeman is needed, Tragg acquires an assistant - this time from the sheriff office. No Hamilton Burger either, he sends another underling - Danvers - to the preliminary hearings - which is all that we really get. The hearing itself, despite achieving the usual success, is almost understated - partially because it is not a full trial and partially because of all of the time taken chasing people across the state. And untangling what is the truth and what is someone's idea of the truth. And at the end you wonder if the person that died is not better of dead - for the sake of everyone else.

Not the strongest novel in the series but entertaining enough. 30 books into the series and it is still going strong. And I am always surprised how fast Gardner makes a series book read as a standalone - remind us who Della, Gertie (who has a somewhat bigger role than usual) and Paul are and inject enough background so you do not need the previous books. ( )

So so Perry Mason. Doesn't bring up memories of the TV show. NOne of the characters or actions seemed to fit. ( )

This is a pretty bad Perry Mason. From 1947 it has a totally ridiculous plot which seems to be made up of bits and pieces that the author couldn’t fit into other books. The Perry Masons are never really great but they are usually entertaining. This one is more irritating than anything else. There is some business with a forged check, an amnesia victim (maybe), and a lot of to-do about footprints. You won’t care about any of it and you won’t have much trouble figuring out who the guilty party is. And why, after some 10 years of association, does Perry still need to tell Della “Go down the hall, Della; get Paul Drake of the Drake Detective Agency to come in here.” How many Paul Drakes reside down the hall. ( )

Bertrand Allred was spreading ugly stories about his beautiful wife. He seemed anxious to convince Perry Mason that Lola had run off with Robert Fleetwood, Bertrand's best friend. But why did everyone who saw the couple together notice that Fleetwood looked lazy about love?
It didn't make sense to Perry Mason. Why, he asked, would any man be lazy about making love to a beauty like Lola? Why would Bertrand Allred want people to know that this wife ran around?
A call from the homicide squad added another and more important question to Mason's growing list --
Who had killed the gossiping husband?