I picked up a late series entry recently, and it holds the same fast pace, circuitous plotting and curiosity-piquing situations that readers enjoyed for decades in Mason's heydey.
This tale appeared in print in 1966, right at the end of the Raymond Burr TV series run, so it seems to have escaped adaptation, but it still comes alive on the page today.
It's not Mason's greatest adventure. The courtroom scenes come late in the story in the form of a preliminary hearing, but there are enough twists and puzzles along the way to keep things intriguing.
As is often true, things get rolling when Perry and his assistant Della Street go to lunch. The eatery manager warns that their waitress bought their table from another server. It's a practice when deployed when a big tipper's on hand and the waitress is likely to see some ROI.
The manager fears it's not a tip but Perry's legal expertise that's made him a desirable customer. That's exactly the situation with the title's Katherine Ellis.
Instead of turning her away, Perry, with his usual soft spot, arranges to hear her story for the cost of an over-tip.
Seems Katherine has just lost her father. She's in her early twenties and has had her comfortable lifestyle ripped away from her because dad wasn't a saver, hence her current position.
Hatboxes full of hundreds
She's moved to L.A. to live with her Aunt Sophia, who's a bit of a cipher. Aunt Sophie pinches pennies, seemingly broke after her "husband" died on a golf course and left all his money to his ex. Despite the penny pinching, Aunties takes costly cab rides to a local factory to hawk pencils at the gate. Oh, and she has hatboxes full of money in her closet. HATBOXES! It's 1966.
Uh, oh. Perry warns she's now in danger of being accused if that hatbox dough goes missing. He urges her to get out of the house immediately. That may seem a little extreme, but soon that's exactly what's happening. Aunt Sophia's gentleman friend's on hand to demand finger printing when not hundreds of thousands but a $100 bill goes missing. It's 1966 dammit, and Perry informs his private-eye-on-retainer Paul Drake that fingerprints can be lifted from cardboard hatboxes now.
Perry steps in to avoid the finger printing even though Aunt Sophie's beau has a private investigator of his own on hand. The guy's from a legitimate firm and not backing a lot of the shenanigans.
Paul's army
Deploying a small army of Paul Drake's nameless, faceless operatives on his own dime, Perry vows to get to the bottom of things to satisfy his own curiosity. Gardner had similar passions, so you can buy it. Perry's so famous he has to be loaded, and all he does is work.
The operatives turn up more strange behavior including a blind woman who trades off with Aunt Sophie on the pencil-selling gig, but before Perry can put things together the aunt's brained into a coma and Katy's charged with attempted murder, or something like that, because at just about the time of the subbing she went back to the house to pick up comfortable shoes. She's on her feet all day as a waitress.
Perry and Paul are soon staking out the aunt's residence, gathering more puzzling clues, running afoul of Lt. Tragg and executing Perry-level schemes to bring out the truth.
All of the odd elements eventually tie together, and Gardner wraps things up in his deft, professional way despite this being about seven or so books from the end of the series. It's not the best introduction to Perry and misses some of the nail-biting from earlier books in the series, but it's still fun and fast with tension and surprises.
Impulse buy? This one's not on Kindle at this writing, but browse Gardner titles here.
And at Open Library.
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