4/9/22

This is the first of the two collections published in 1971 but it contains the second Mason story chronologically (out of the only 4 that he wrote).

If you find your married lover murdered in the apartment he kept so you can be together, what would you do:
a) Call the police
b) Pretend you did not find him and let someone else find him
c) Give enough sleeping pills to your roommate to kill her, move her things to the dead man apartment and take a smaller dose of the pills so you appear drugged?
If you answered with a) or b), then you are not Anita, one of the first two characters we meet in "The Case of the Crimson Kiss" ("The American Magazine", June 1948) - Fay and Anita. Fay is happy because she has just been engaged and is about to be married (as soon as her aunt comes to town). Anita is not exactly happy - she used to go out with the man her roommate is about to marry - and she has her own issues with the man she is now seeing. When he turns up dead, she figures she can escape the whole thing... and only chance saves Fay. At least for now - before long she is apprehended for the murder and Perry Mason is called to help. It is an unusual story in a lot of ways - the reader knows the truth (or part of it anyway) and Perry does not get to the idea of it until relatively lately. The solution itself is a classical Mason one - no Sherlock-style deduction but just knowing the science of detection.

In "Fingers of Fong" ("All Detective", March 1933), a Chinese man is accused of killing and robbing a woman - and Dick Sprague is sent to investigate and try to find the truth. It is one of the Oriental stories by Gardner and despite the times he writes in, it is almost non-racist (it probably won't be published today but it is pretty mild for the 30s). There is a crime boss, there are sacred jades statues and there are more dead people. Plus a bunch of policemen who are happy to just have a killer and don't care about the truth.

"The Valley of Little Fears" ("Argosy", September 13, 1930) is one of the Bob Zane/Whispering Sands stories. Fred Smith moves to a mine town and seems to be afraid of everything. He gets his job but he also becomes the butt of every joke. Until the local cafe owner takes him under her wing and decides to help him - and Fred Smith learns to stand his ground.

"Crooked Lightning" ("Detective Fiction Weekly", December 29, 1928) introduces us to a diamond dealer whose job is to travel with some very expensive stones. Spotting one of the big gem thieves on the same train, he decides that the man is there to rob him - so he breaks a rule or three and even partners with another dealer who he had worked with but never met. It is obvious where that story is going but reading it is still a pleasure.

The last story, "At Arm's Length" ("Detective Fiction Weekly", December 9, 1939) introduces us to Jerry Marr, a PI who looks at the newspapers for cases the police struggles with and finds a way to work on them. A woman is killed in her own house and noone seems to have any idea what happened. Before long, Jerry finds not only the man who is being framed, but also the people who are framing him. Some of the ways Jerry worked the case reminded me of some of the Perry Mason novels - both how Paul and Perry worked in some cases.. Gardner never wrote another Marr story so it is possible that he just got what worked and used it in his big series.

A solid collection if you are in the mood for some vintage detective/crime stories. ( )

Perry Mason se encuentra con un cliente acusada de asesinar a un hombre, que según afirma la policía era su amante. Ella dice que no lo conoce, pero la policía a encontrado su llavero, camisones, ropa interior, e incluso su cepillo de dientes y pasta de dientes en el apartamento secreto del hombre asesinado. Ella también había sido drogada, al igual que su compañera de habitación, una droga que habría sido fatal si su tía no hubiera llegado con un médico a tiempo.