A Perry Mason Omnibus by Erle Stanley Gardner

Note that Friday Forgotten Book participant Scott Parker reviewed this book on September 19, 2008.

Caution, reading this and other books in the series can be habit forming. One surprise to me was the lack of any courtroom scene in the book. As expected, this is a fun, fast read. One of them tries to go in one direction just as hard as it can, and the other tries to go in the other direction just as hard as it can.” I use everything I can in order to get an acquittal. But the District Attorney uses everything he can in order to get a conviction. If the District Attorney would play fair, then I could be fair. It’s my duty to make the strongest kind of case I can on the other side. “The D.A represents the people, he makes the strongest case he can. Mason describes his view of his profession to Drake about ¾ through the book: He’s insolent to the cops and demanding of Paul Drake. At one point he decks a guy he’s been pushing for information. Mason is a tough guy here, not polished as we see him in later books or the television program. This is pure pulp, with a twist or two but nothing that special. When he gets there she tells him her husband has been killed and pleads for his help. Then a few nights later she calls Mason in the middle of the night, pleading with him to meet her in an all-night drugstore. He tries to suppress the story in the scandal rag Spicy Bits but the client doesn’t have enough money for the payoff. She was at a night club with a politician when a shooting occurred, and she wants Mason to help her avoid a scandal. He soon finds her real name is Eva Belter. When Eva Griffin walks into Mason’s office and says she’s in a jam, she’s obviously not giving her real name nor telling the truth, but Mason takes the retainer. I love these darn things! I’ve probably read about a third of the 80 books and plan to keep on going. It wasn’t quite what I expected from my viewing of the TV show, but I liked it a lot. I picked this to start with, it’s the first one in the series and I read a series in order whenever I can. I liked it, and I rarely figured out the real culprit until the stunning (to me, at least) courtroom revelation. My parents watched and I got to watch too.

Sure, I’d watched the television show back in the day. The cover shown here isn’t the one on the book I have – mine is in a 3-novel volume titled A Perry Mason Omnibus published by William Morrow in 1956 which, frankly, has a really boring cover.

A Perry Mason Omnibus by Erle Stanley Gardner