William Desmond Taylor – then and now

Back in the 1940s, Marie Rodell was the editor of the Regional Murder series, a number of books containing essays regarding true crime cases. I was introduced to The LA Murders and The Chicago Murders through my biography of Craig Rice. Rice had contributed to the Chicago edition with an essay and helped to edit LA.

In The LA Murders, I found an essay by Erle Stanley Gardner, the author of the Perry Mason series, on William Desmond Taylor, a fascinating unsolved murder case. Taylor was a famous actor and director who was fatally shot one night at his home in LA. It was obvious from early on that many people did not want the crime solved and did their best to obstruct the investigation. The piece, "The Case of the Movie Murder", was a recount of the story developed mainly from newspaper accounts of what had happened. 

Of course, being Rice, she wanted a more sensationalistic approach to the topic and wanted Gardner to name the killer, similar to how Perry Mason solves the crime in the last pages of the book. Gardner, ever the lawyer, refused. Many of the primary suspects were still alive in 1946, and Gardner was worried about a libel suit from one person in particular (Mrs. Shelby.) His work was cautious, but the astute reader could see that Mrs. Shelby was the person Gardner suspected most of the crimes. 

Flash forward 70 years, and William Mann has written Tinseltown, a book regarding the same case. The first thing I noticed as I read this fascinating book was that Mann had added valuable context to the case. No longer does the reader have to wonder why people wanted to shut down the investigation. He discusses the overdoses of several celebrities and the Fatty Arbuckle case all of which tainted the Hollywood brand in the first decades of the new century. 

Each of the many suspects is discussed at length in chapters that alternate. Mann paints such a vivid image of each of the actresses and studio heads that there is never any confusion about the wide variety of people that Taylor knew. 

With the passage of over 90 years now, Mann does have a distinct advantage over Gardner. He is able to speculate on the case as all of the primary suspects have now passed away. This makes for a better book in that Mann does draw some distinct conclusions about the murderer and the solution. I won’t share these – I don’t want to deprive you of the pleasure of reading this book. 

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries, true crime or Hollywood. The William Desmond Taylor case offers all three of these and Mann has used all three deftly. 

A Puzzle for Wantons

In my last blog post, I mentioned my favorite Quentin, A Puzzle for Wantons, and I thought today I’d discuss my reasons for that. First, the book is the fourth in the Puzzle series that features Iris and Peter Duluth.

The couple met in A Puzzle for Fools, then married in A Puzzle for Players and reunited when Peter returned home from the war in A Puzzle for Puppets. The first three books are thoroughly enjoyable, but as detective stories they fall short of what I hope for. Fool and Players uses a third party (Dr. Lenz, the psychiatrist) to solve the crimes at the last minute, which reduces the part of the main characters from sleuths to merely pawns. Puppets has a wonderful first half where the Duluths are trying to solve a series of crimes, but then takes the entire second half of the book to explain the solution.

Which brings the reader to Wantons. Iris, who is now a nationally known actress and her husband visit Reno as the guests of Lorraine Pleygel, an insanely wealthy woman who has invited a number of couples to her mansion. With the exception of the Duluths and Pleygel (who has recently fallen for a man) and the unaptly named “Lover and Mimi, all the other couples are in the throes of divorce.

One by one, the women in these failed relationships begin to die. Dorothy, who ran through her husband’s money while he was off at war, is the first to go by way of a poisoned gambling chip. Then Janet is killed as well.

This is the only book in the series that the Duluths are not presented with the solution. Both together and separately they hunt for the clues that will lead them to the answer to a particularly twisted ending. I can’t talk about the ending without spoilers, but it’s as delicious as the rest of the book.

There would be four more books in the series, two more Puzzle books and two books where Lt. Trant begins to become the lead character for the series. The remaining Puzzle books were Fiend, which was more thriller than detective novel, and Pilgrim, which was just frankly depressing.

There were paperback reprints of these novels in the 1980s, but nothing since then. Since they were the joint collaboration of Richard Webb and Hugh Wheeler, I have no idea what the estate would look like for getting these books digitally published. 

Four authors, three pen names and a great book

I just finished reading Mysteries Unlocked: Essays in Honor of Douglas G. Greene. This was a project organized by Curt Evans in honor of Doug’s 70^th birthday. While not technically a history of the genre, it might as well be. The essays stretch from JS Fletcher (when I was younger, I did believe that the J was for “Jessica” as in Murder She Wrote) to PD James. While so many of the books I read travel a well-known path of authors and their works, I was very pleased by the amount of original research done for this book. There were essays on Carolyn Wells, the aforementioned Mr. Fletcher, and Patrick Quentin.

 

The Quentin essay was one of my favorites in the book. Quentin has long been a favorite author, but the exact provenance of each book was somewhat in question. Four authors wrote as Patrick Quentin/Q Patrick/Jonathan Stagge. Richard Webb collaborated with all three of the other authors, making him the sole common factor in their creation. None of the others working in collaboration with each other.

 

Each of the pen names has wonderful books. Q Patrick released The Grindle Nightmare, which is roundly praised. (For my xx^th birthday, I received a signed first of this book, so I’ll be blogging on it soon.)

 

As Patrick Quentin, Webb and Hugh Wheeler wrote the Peter Duluth series of mysteries. The series later would swap detectives for Lt. Timothy Trant, but the first few books in the series are a delight. In A Puzzle for Fools, the first in the series, Peter meets Iris while they are both in a mental institution.

My favorite in the series is A Puzzle for Wantons, with a wonderful puzzle and a wicked solution. I’ll be posting another blog entry on that book alone soon.

*** Note: in the spirit of self-disclosure, I do have an essay in Mysteries Unlocked, but I do not receive any remuneration from it. 

Writing like it's 2014

Dear Author:

The year is 2014. LGBT characters are routinely shown on TV, and 35-ish states (plus DC) will allow marriage between spouses of the same gender in the next few weeks. So why am I continuing to see the same tired old tropes in fiction? I just stopped reading a recent best seller for exactly these reasons.

I’m listing a few “rules” for writing LGBT characters that should be heeded.

1)      Never refer to a character as a “homosexual” and especially do not have a character self-identify in that way. Unless the character performs research in the social sciences, this will never happen. The same applies to “preference;” the only person who would use that word is a hater.

2)      Use stereotypes with care. While stereotypes typically have a grain of truth in them, the fact is that for every gay man who doesn’t know sports, there’s a Michael Sam. There is no one size fits all character that can be used. Make your LGBT character as well developed as any other character in the book.

3)      Lesbian characters are not a straight man’s fantasy. If they don’t have a legitimate purpose beyond titillation, make them straight women.  

4)      Introduce transgender characters with dignity. Learn the differences between cross-dressers, drag king/queen, and transgender, and don’t mix characteristics of each into a single character. Use the pronouns that your characters would want used about them. If you can’t determine those pronouns, then you’re not ready to include this character yet.

5)      If your character is in a relationship, know the status. Does that state have marriage equality or civil unions or nothing? What does that cover? What does that not cover? I know when I read about a same sex spouse receiving survivor benefits from Social Security that the author has made assumptions. It’s not all equal. Granted, things are changing quickly, but for readers today we will know the difference.

6)      Don’t use a stereotype as a clue to the solution of the mystery. The hero should never say, “Only a man who knew the words to Funny Girl could have killed Mr. X, which means that our gay character is the killer.” Don’t give us a list of over-the-top clues to the orientation of a character to allow us to “solve” the mystery of the character’s orientation. “Jack is so tidy that he must be gay!” It was outdated in 1970. It’s ridiculous today.

7)      Gay does not equal weak. I have a black belt in tae kwon do. So save the tears for someone else. The old gay as victim has been done to death. It goes back at least 90 years, which means there’s nothing new you can do with that scenario.

8)      You don’t get to use the word f*****. Ever. If you have a homophobic character, show us that he or she is homophobic. Don’t have him/her call another character f***** as your shorthand for homophobic. When writing, replace it with the n-word and see how great it sounds.

9) 9     And since we’re doing away with the gay as victim, let’s get rid of the gay as villain role too. No gay person has ever murdered people to stay in the closet. Trust me, I’ve done research. So this motive is not realistic. Chad Allen and NPH were forced out of the closet. Larry Craig, despite being outed, continues to deny it. None of them have ever killed to keep a secret.

10)      If you don’t know, use Google. Don’t assume that you know the LGBT experience because you watched Dynasty in the 1980s. Things have changed. Better yet. Ask someone who is LGBT. Even if you don’t think you do, you know more than one LGBT person. Chances are they’ll be happy to answer your questions. 

Another Series Continuation...

Thomas Chastain agreed to continue the Perry Mason series with books written by him and approved by the estate. Chastain had been a newspaper reporter who was best known for Who Killed The Robins Family?, a mystery novel that doubled as a contest to name the killer and win a prize. Following the second book featuring Perry Mason, and the series ended for a second and final time. Chastain passed away four years later. 

The first book was something of an anomaly and stood out immediately from the rest of the series. The title of the book was The Case of Too Many Murders, which deviated from the pattern by removing “the” and replacing it with “too.” Unlike the majority of the Perry Mason cases, the story does not open with a scene in Mason’s office, and the novel has the feel of Gardner’s early harder boiled mysteries. Unlike the original books, Chastain uses interior monologues for the characters, which was not something that Gardner had ever done. Characters were portrayed by their actions, not their thoughts, and at no time was the reader allowed into Perry Mason's head. Such a technique would have ruined the surprises that lay in store for the reader in the last chapter of the book. Ignoring that rule, Chastain radically altered the feel for the books. Readers were suddenly presented with a Perry Mason who had his own thoughts -- rather than a Perry whose thoughts were inferred by the reader. 

Chastain used some of the made-for-television movie enhancements in his book, such as the use of the Paul Drake Jr character. The second book in the series was The Case of the Burning Bequest. The books were pedestrian mysteries without much in the way of Gardner’s own unique knowledge of the law. 

Top 10 Books

There's a new meme on Facebook where you're asked to name 10 books that influenced you. I posted a short list of books on Facebook, but I thought I'd elaborate on each title on my blog. While it may 

seem amazingly eclectic, explanations might make more sense of it. Each has had an impact on me personally and professionally. 

Here they are in their glory:

1) East of Eden by John Steinbeck - A great re-imagining of the story of Cain and Abel, this story's theme always reminds me that free will and choices make up so much of who we are. Sometimes I need to be reminded of that. 

2) Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger - Is there a teenage boy who doesn't like this and read it? 

3) Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers - One of my all time favorite mysteries, which combined a non-murder plot, a romance, and a thematic question on women and education. A fascinating blend, and a book I re-read almost yearly. 

4) Emma by Jane Austen - Jane Austen has a way with characters and social mores. Emma is perhaps my favorite character. Her twisted path to find Mr. Knightly reminds me of someone else I know <g>. 

5) A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie - In its own way, a novel of post WWII England as much as a mystery. Christie looks at the way her country has changed for better and for worse. The book includes her first lesbian couple and an aftermath of murder that is as raw and gut-wrenching as anything I've seen by any mystery author. 

6) In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - True crime meets one of the century's bon vivants. 

7) The Greek Coffin Mystery by Ellery Queen - Not one, but four brilliant solutions in one book. By far one of the best and most convoluted mysteries ever written. 

8) Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett - Read to me by my 4th grade teacher Mrs. Murply. We didn't finish before the end of the school year. The story so fascinated me that I had to pick up a copy at the library and finish it. I was amazed to think that a book could so have an impact on a person. 

9) My Kingdom for a Hearse by Craig Rice  - One of the most grotesque and funny mysteries ever, I never realized that mysteries could be just downright fun. 

10) Women in Love by DH Lawrence  - We read this in high school and twice since. It gets better as I age. 

And remember that I judge people by the books on their shelves,

The Whiffs of Dover

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I love a comedic mystery. I’ve written extensively about Craig Rice and Phoebe Atwood Taylor, but this week I’m going across the pond to England in the 1960s for a dose of Dover. 

Detective Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover was the character created by Joyce Porter for a series of mysteries. Dover is unlike any DCI you’ll ever read about. He’s surly, mean, obese, attention-seeking, fame-grabbing, hard drinking, lazy, and borderline corrupt, and yet he’s one of the funniest detectives around. I recently found two of this series at Grave Matters and I bought them up in a hurry.

In Dover Two, which some critics call the best of the series, he’s sent to the scene of an attempted murder. Dover’s actually glad to be there since he’s tired of hearing about Bigamous Bertie and Superintendent Roderick. A young woman, who is both unattractive and insistent for a suitor, has been pestering the men of Curdley. She was shot several months prior to Dover’s arrival. The woman had been in a coma since the attempted homicide; however, her death makes it a homicide and Dover, along with Sergeant MacGregor, go to Curdley.

They find the town to be in a long-standing feud between the CoE townsfolk and the Catholic residents. Dover is a Methodist, which makes him somewhat immune to the battle. He and MacGregor follow a wide range of clues from pillowcases to the infamous Bigamous Bertie himself. MacGregor, who is a paragon of virtue, is outdone by Dover at nearly every turn in this case.

Focusing on the original crime, Dover finds a somewhat impossible crime situation for which he has a few choice words. The only people in the vicinity of the shooting have eyewitnesses to their locations. Since the walls along the road where she was shot were high and gated, it appears that no one could have shot poor Isobel.

Under the layers of laughter is a taut mystery that is little appreciated. I wish that the Dover books would be reprinted. There are Foul Play Press editions from some years ago, but I’ve heard nothing about other reprints or eBooks of these classics. 

My Top 5 Cool and Lam titles

5) Owls Don’t Blink - Gardner wrote Owls Don’t Blink while staying in New Orleans during January 1942. The start of World War II stifled Gardner’s travel plans and restricted his movements. These changes would be reflected in Gardner’s works with Cool and Lam. He wrote to his parents: “Conditions are so chaotic no one knows what is going on anywhere and it is terribly hard to make plans. I am working on a story of New Orleans for a publisher and expect to have it finished with the next week or ten days. – After that, I’ll probably head directly for California and get things in shape out there so that if I come East again in the spring I’ll have the ranch running all right.” Owls Don’t Blink was the first of Gardner’s wartime trilogy for Cool and Lam. Donald has finished a case in Florida and agrees to meet Bertha in New Orleans (the city where Gardner had written to his parents a few months before) to help locate a missing woman, Roberta

Fenn. Lam finds her without trouble; she then eludes them. When Lam is on the trail of the woman again, he and Bertha find a dead lawyer in Fenn’s apartment. Fenn and a friend, Edna Cutler, had switched identities for a while to cool some suitors. In the interim, Cutler’s husband had served Fenn with divorce papers, which now put into question the legality of Mr. Cutler’s recent remarriage.  Woven throughout the case is the subplot of Bertha landing military construction contracts as a side business to the detective agency. Her motive is both profit and keeping Lam out of the military. Her actions only serve to have Lam enlist before the end of the book. He explains the entire scam on the steps of the Naval recruitment office, just before going inside.

4) The Bigger They Come – The first, and in some ways the most ingenious of the Cool and Lam books. Gardner used a loophole he had discovered in the law to allow Donald Lam to show his own character by using that loophole to save a girl he was interested in. In The Bigger They Come, Lam is assigned to serve

divorce papers on Morgan Birks, who is also wanted in connection with a slot machine con. Through Sandra Birks, the plaintiff in the divorce proceedings, Lam meets Alma Hunt. He falls hard for her, and gives Alma a stolen gun to protect herself. After serving Birks with the papers in a hotel, Lam is kidnapped and taken to see a mysterious man known as “The Chief.” Later, Birks is found murdered, shot with the same gun that Lam had given to Alma.

3) You Can Die Laughing - You Can Die Laughing, the title for the first of the two 1957 titles, comes from a saying that Lam tells a client twice during the course of the story. Gone are the courtroom scenes and the lack of action of Beware the Curves. A client hires Cool and Lam to locate Yvonne Clymer, who also goes by the name of Mrs. Drury Wells. From the start of the book, the client is not honest with the firm. He spins a tale of oil and land grabs to Bertha, only to report a routine missing persons case to Donald. Clymer inherits property and cash if she can be found; otherwise the estate goes to a cousin. The client wants Clymer to sign some paperwork regarding the mineral rights for that property. Unlike many cases where the client is merely an impetus for the story, this client continues to barge into the action, trying to wrest control of the investigation from Donald. Hence, Donald gives him the titular response at one point.

2) Try Anything Once - Lam runs up against the law and Frank Sellers again. An important client asks Lam to keep his name out of a murder case that took place at the motel where he was having an assignation with a woman who was not his wife. Lam impersonates the client, but Sellers doesn’t fall for it, and catches Lam when Lam must either lie directly to the police or admit some of the truth. The police want to learn the

name of Cool and Lam’s client, as the victim was a deputy DA on the trail of a killer when he was murdered. Lam follows the dead man’s tracks to find out what the victim had discovered and why he ended up at the motel. Sellers throws Lam in the drunk tank at one point to keep him away from the crime and the suspects, a move that only temporarily keeps him away from the action and one that leads to a rare apology from Sellers.

1) Top of the Heap - When the firm gets a new client who wants to find two young women, Lam smells a trap. John Carver Billings the Second wants to find the pair he had met previously. When Lam goes to investigate, he finds a prescription label that leads him right to the girls in question. Lam suspects that the girls represent a faked alibi for the heir, and he begins to investigate likely crimes covered by the alibi. One of the crimes is the disappearance of a mobster’s girlfriend, following the mobster’s death. Donald thinks that might be the only crime that would be sufficiently worth the trouble of the alibi.

Fools Die on Friday, Some Women Can’t Wait, Beware the Curves, Double or Quits, and Bats Fly at Dusk, would like round out the top 10 for me. 

Yes, Another Top 5 list

Okay, I'm going to jump on board here, but here are my top five Christies.

5) Appointment with Death - One of Christie's Middle Eastern mysteries, this one set in Petra. This is one of her prime examples of the least likely suspect mysteries, and the victim is one of the most evil people in the Christie canon. I don't think there can be much question about Christie's feelings on evil after this book.

4) A Murder is Announced - I had to have at least one Marple on my list, and this is the favorite of the Marples for me. Christie took on the changes in the English country life after WWII in this book. Everyone in the book has been affected by the ravages brought on by the war. I think this is one of Christie's books that best shows her ability to record social issues and changes. She's often accused of ignoring changes in society, but this book shows that can she record these upheavals accurately when she wants to.

3) The Hollow - This is a story that just sticks with me. The set-up is simple, but effective and the solution even more so. Along the way, we get to know each of the characters in more detail in all of their conflicting thoughts and behavior. I always wonder how much of Christie's own experiences were used in writing about a woman whose husband is unfaithful.

2) And Then There Were None - this book has been on almost everyone's top 5 lists. How can you top a book where everyone is a victim and no one is the killer?


1) Death on the Nile - without a doubt, my favorite Christie. So much so that I actually went to Egypt and took the same cruise up the Nile (though no one was killed on my cruise, more's the pity.) I particularly enjoy the Middle East books by Christie and this is by far the best of them. The book is an incredibly well-plotted mystery along with one of the best cast of characters. Even the minor characters are memorable. There's humor in the book as well as a compelling mystery.

My 6-10 would likely include: Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, Evil Under the Sun, Sleeping Murder, The ABC Murders, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Top Ten List for Perry Mason

In honor of Erle Stanley Gardner’s birthday today, I thought I’d do a top 10 list of my favorite Perry Mason novels. There are as many lists as there are folks reading the books, so you can take mine with a grain of salt, but I can say that I’ve read all 80 of the books and from that standpoint, I do feel qualified to make this list. (Well, that and 3 years writing a biography of him!) 

Most of these works came from a very creative period of 1938-1945 for Gardner, when many of his best works appeared in all of his series.

If there’s sufficient interest, perhaps I can do a top 5 of the Cool/Lam books later. Since there are only 29, I’d feel silly doing a top 10.

1)      TCOT Lame Canary – this was supposed to be the last of the Perry Mason books. Gardner was tired of not being published in the slicks and he was ready to try other characters. The Saturday Evening Post bought the rights to this story after Gardner had spent significant time in revising (and it shows.)

2)      TCOT Careless Kitten  - Gardner takes an opportunity to lament the loss of individual rights. Tragg and Burger try to attack Mason by arresting Della for harboring the client’s long-lost uncle. Mason feels like the cards are stacked against the innocent victim in contemporary society. “It’s high time for citizens to wake up to the fact that it isn’t a question of whether a man is guilty or innocent, but whether his guilt or innocence can be proved under a procedure which leaves in the citizen the legal rights to which he is entitled under a constitutional government” [italics are Gardner’s].  This legal ideal would be revisited in the Court of Last Resort and in many of the later Mason books. This dedication to individual rights, first outlined in his popular literature, would later lead Gardner back to the courtroom to help innocent citizens get a fair break from the American justice system.

3)      TCOT Drowsy Mosquito – In this book, Gardner outlines his own personal philosophy. Living outdoors is needed to make you healthy. Being in touch with nature is the best cure. It’s shown when the client actually lives outside of his house, enjoying a tent more than a bedroom. Of course, the client is killed, so maybe it’s not all that healthy?  It also is one of the few times that Perry and Della are in immediate danger. Since they appear in about 40 books, you know that nothing happens to them, but it’s interesting to see how Gardner handles it.

4)      TCOT Borrowed Brunette – one of the first of the titillating titles. There would be many to follow but this is one of the first. It’s also an interesting premise which uses a variation of the Conan Doyle’s “The Red-Headed League” by advertising for a particular type of woman. Gardner liked to say that he didn’t read within the genre, but this story (and others) show that he did.

5)      TCOT Drowning Duck – Gardner introduced a character very much like himself in this book, a rugged outdoorsman who lived away from society. It’s an interesting look at how he perceived himself. Gardner also used some current science from that era for the catchy title. He spoke with mystery author Sally Wright’s father to get the details straight.

6)      TCOT Buried Clock -  Gardner makes his only reference to World War II where one of the main characters is recuperating from an arm injury received during combat. He goes to a cabin in the woods in order to convalesce after his wartime service and hears the ticking of a clock outside. He finds the clock and noticed that the clock is not set to the current time

7)      TCOT Empty Tin - Mason makes a few good legal observations, based on Gardner’s early legal career. Mason tells Lieutenant Tragg that a suspect heard two shots instead of one. When the suspect questions Mason about this, Mason points out that the police do not want to uncover a single witness who contradicts all other witnesses.  According to Alva Johnston, Gardner had used this strategy in the 1920s when he’d been questioned in Ventura after Gardner had gotten a mobster there acquitted of murder. Gardner used the acquaintance to research his own pulp stories and learned a great deal about mob activity in Ventura. When the police picked up Gardner to question him about some of what he had witnessed during his research, Gardner began by avoiding answering the questions. However, he soon became overly helpful, telling wild stories filled with details that contradicted other witnesses and including his own guesses about the case as part of his testimony. Obviously, no prosecutor would want to put such a witness before a jury, and Gardner was released and not bothered.

8)      TCOT Velvet Claws – The first book in series. It’s fascinating to see how well Gardner creates these characters who don’t change much over the course of 40 years and 80 books. It’s a bit more hard-boiled than most and doesn’t have the courtroom scene at the end of the book, but it’s still a pageturner.

9)      TCOT Crooked Candle - reintroduces Gardner’s use of physical evidence as clues. In this and many subsequent Mason works, the case will revolve around one or two pieces of forensic evidence that the police will interpret one way, while Mason corrects their interpretation by the end of the book. These clues would become a mainstay of Gardner’s later works as he began his work with the Court of Last Resort and saw the difficulties in using circumstantial evidence to convict a man of murder.

10)  TCOT Half-wakened Wife – starts to see the merging of Perry and Gardner, particularly with a description of Mason pacing the carpet, trying to come up with a plan of action. Jean Bethell shared Gardner plotting process, which was quite similar.  Gardner would sit in a rocking chair, moving back and forth until he had worked his way across the carpet. He would then pick up the chair, move it back, and then start again. Mason’s relentless pacing ties character and creator even more closely.

Greener Pastures

All Grass Isn’t Green was the final Cool/Lam case. Gardner got the Advanced Review Copies just days before his death. While the book was not up to Gardner’s best, his perseverance is impressive given that he was dying of a particularly painful form of cancer while writing. 

Mr. Calhoun wants the detectives to find Colburn Hale, a writer who has disappeared along with Calhoun’s girlfriend, Nanncie. Lam determines Calhoun’s identity and quickly gets a line on the writer and ladyfriend in Mexico. Gardner interposes here to talk about the Mexican culture and people, more like his travel books than a fast-paced mystery. He again interjects into the story to explain about marijuana when it appears that Lam has stumbled across a smuggling ring.

The series does not have any closure, despite the fact that Gardner knew of his impending death. Cool and Lam remained just as they had been for 29 tales, ready for work and looking for clients with cash. 

The Case of the Postponed Novel

In the final Perry Mason novel, The Case of the Postponed Murder,  Morrow provided no notes as to the provenance of the novel; however, a few key phrases make the reader suspect the manuscript was written some 10-30 years prior to its publication. Most suggestions point to a date of somewhere during the Perry Mason television show, but there are no notes in the archives to confirm this. 

Sylvia Farr comes to Mason’s office, looking for her sister, Mae. Mae had been living in the city and writing home on a regular basis until recently. Sylvia wants to find the sister and see if she is alive and well. Mason points Farr to Paul Drake’s office.

In the meantime, Mason learns that Farr has been accused of forging a check by a rebuffed admirer, Penn Wentworth. Farr goes to Wentworth’s boat, they struggle for the gun and a bullet kills Wentworth. However, when Farr brings Mason back to the marina, the boat is out to sea. A somewhat impossible crime occurs when Mason tries to figure out how a boat with only the victim’s body on it could have launched itself.  

The Case of the Final Mason books

Following the publication of The Case of the Irate Witness and Other Stories, Gardner’s estate released two posthumous Perry Mason novels in 1972 and 1973. The first of these two novels was The Case of the Fenced-in Woman. 

While the book was promoted as a new Perry Mason novel, the book was in fact over a decade old. The book was originally titled The Case of the Fenced-Off Women and had been written in 1960. Thayer Hobson had rejected the book at that time for having too improbable a plot. Gardner shared correspondence with Helen King, trying to change her mind, but the decision stood until all of the principals had passed away. The book, while a completed draft, had not gone through the rigorous editing process Helen King provided. At times, it is obvious that no one edited the book to reflect the intervening decade. Word choices and situations provide clues to the actual age of the book. The three Walter

sisters remained intensely protective of the integrity of the Mason series, feeling that Gardner knew best about books and sales.

In this book, Morley Eden visits Mason to discuss a difficulty with his property. He had purchased two lots from Loring Carson, who is in the midst of a messy divorce. Carson assures Eden that he has the deed to both properties, but his assurances are hollow. In his haste to get a divorce, Carson had the wrong woman followed. This wrong woman was having an affair, making Carson feel certain that his wife would settle. The mistake costs him the deed to one of the properties.

To get back at the man who has sided with her husband, Mrs. Carson runs barbed wire through Eden’s new home along the property line, providing Eden with only half the house. During a press conference on the house with Eden and Mason, the reporters find the dead body of Loring Carson. Mason has to find a killer while Eden falls in love with his new neighbor. 

Sulky Gets You Nowhere

The Case of the Sulky Girl, Gardner’s second book, contains Perry Mason’s first courtroom scenes. Fran Celane, the sulky girl of the title, comes to Mason’s office, asking for help with a will. Her father left his money in a trust for her, which she can receive if she remains unmarried at age 25. If she marries before 25, the distribution of the estate is left to the discretion of the trustee, except if the trustee dies before Fran’s 25^th birthday. This sets up the perfect situation for murder, and the reader is not surprised when Edward Norton, the tight-fisted trustee, is found dead in Chapter Five.

Overall, the book is one of the weaker of the period. While the will sets up an interesting situation for murder, Gardner grows pedantic on probate and trusts. It’s obvious that Gardner knew the subject well, but as with most books, all that the author knows should not appear on the pages. Even with these drawbacks, the book was named one of the two Haycraft-Queen cornerstones, the definitive library listing of mystery fiction, for Gardner’s Perry Mason series. The legal descriptions were so detailed that an estate lawyer later cited them during a trial in an Arizona courtroom.

New Release, Excerpt & Giveaway!

New Release, Excerpt & Giveaway!

Murder Comes Ashore by Julie Anne Lindsey

Thank you so much for inviting me over today, Jeffrey. I’m excited to see the birth of my new book baby and share a teaser piece with you and your readers.

Giveaway: If the excerpt makes you smile, I hope you’ll consider leaving a comment. I’m giving away one copy each of Murder Comes Ashore and book one in the series, Murder by the Seaside. Two chance to win! I’ll keep an eye on comments today. Good luck! And I hope the excerpt makes you smile : )

 Excerpt:

“Look.” I smacked Sebastian’s arm.

Sebastian turned to look and I darted past him. His footfalls kept pace with mine, allowing me to maintain the lead when he could easily have passed me. I waded into the grasses, waving my arms overhead to keep the gulls at bay.

“Told you I could help.” In a moment of gloating, I lost sight of the evidence. A seagull honked and dove at me. I jumped back on instinct and fell into the sand. A wilted reed of grass rammed up my nose and I screamed. Sneezing bug eggs and cooties, I scrambled to my feet and chased the offending bird across the sand. Two more birds joined him in the air and attacked. Whatever they all wanted, it was flesh colored and I wanted it too.

Sebastian shoved two fingers in his lips and whistled. Fargas jogged toward me, a look of shock on his face. Yeah, yeah. How’d I get here? I pointed to the sky. “They’ve got something.”

The birds circled in the air, stretching the thing in their beaks and flapping with vigor.

“Should I shoot them?” Fargas called to Sebastian.

A mob of birders appeared from the trees like magic. “No!”

“What the hell?” Sebastian frowned.

“They were probably here all night looking for owls or something.” I rolled my eyes.

Fargas unholstered his side arm and the birders started closing in, cell phones at arm’s length, digitally capturing the chaos.

“Do not shoot that bird!” A wild scream broke out above the other voices. A woman in hip waders and a dirty shirt charged Fargas.

I tossed shells at the birds circling overhead. “I can’t hit them!” Frustration burst from my chest in a growl. “Stop!” I screamed at the birds.

Fargas toppled into the sand beside me, crushed beneath the rampaging woman. Her giant binoculars bounced off his forehead and he went limp.

“Aw, hell.” Sebastian groaned. He scooped a handful of rocks from the sand and pulled his arm back.

A shower of feathers burst above me and a bird fell from the sky. The others squawked complaints, but headed out to sea. I ran for the grounded bird and yanked the skin from his beak. He flapped his wings and waddled in a daze across the sand.

“You monster! You hit that bird with a rock! Murderer!” The woman climbed off Fargas and headed for Sebastian, who dropped his remaining rocks in favor of cuffs and badge. She raised her fists and Sebastian spun her around, cuffing her and reciting her rights.

I flipped the fleshy prize in my hands, struggling to make sense of what the birds had worked so hard to keep. I tugged and squeezed the thing, looking past the damage done from multiple bird beaks. Realization dawned. My tummy lurched.

“Ahh!” The scream that ripped loose from my chest was Oscar-worthy. I dropped the thing and ran in a tiny circle, unsure which way to go for bleach and a fast hand-removal surgery. I rubbed my palms over the seat of my pants until they hurt.

Sebastian finished reading Waders her rights.

A line of EMTs-turned-beachcombers surrounded Fargas. One checked his vitals. One followed the waddling bird and radioed the park ranger for assistance. We had two head injuries, six EMTs and no ambulance. I marched in big, knee-to-my-chest steps, trying not to think of the thing I would never forget. Ever. Ever. Ever.

I covered my eyes with one hand. The one without lifelong cooties. With the other hand, I pointed to the item saved from the seagulls. “The victim is not a woman!”

Murder Comes Ashore

Patience Price is just settling into her new life as resident counselor on Chincoteague Island when things take a sudden turn for the worse. A collection of body parts have washed up on shore and suddenly nothing feels safe on the quaint island.

Patience instinctively turns to current crush and FBI special agent Sebastian for help, but former flame Adrian is also on the case, hoping that solving the grisly crime will land him a win in the upcoming mayoral election.

When the body count rises and Patience's parents are brought in as suspects, Patience is spurred to begin her own investigation. It's not long before she starts receiving terrifying threats from the killer, and though she's determined to clear her family's name, it seems the closer Patience gets to finding answers, the closer she comes to being the killer's next victim.

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About Julie:

Julie Anne Lindsey is a multi-genre author who writes the stories that keep her up at night. She’s a self-proclaimed nerd with a penchant for words and proclivity for fun. Julie lives in rural Ohio with her husband and three small children. Today, she hopes to make someone smile. One day she plans to change the world.

Murder Comes Ashore is a sequel in her new mystery series, Patience Price, Counselor at Large, from Carina Press.  

Learn About Julie at:

Julieannelindsey.com