The Case of the Hesitant Hostess

Was not a big fan of this one. Perhaps I am a bit too attached to ESG's formulaic writing, given that the twists are what we are after. So this starts in the middle and goes off in some really weird direction. The plot was also a bit convoluted, so I think he was trying a bit too hard.

Mason is appointed to defend an elderly indigent accused of a holdup; the weatlhy man who claims to have been robbed has a witness who claims to have been in the car with him, Martha Lavina, who runs three successful nightclubs. Cross-examining her, Perry suspects she wasn't there at all, but Inez Kayler, one of her "hostesses" who supposedly picked her up after the holdup, and was prepared to deny it, suddenly runs out on Perry in the midst of the trial. Perry seeks her in one of Lavina's clubs, and finds it is attached to a gambling establishment (illegal min those days). Meanwhile, Perry's client's innocent niece shows up from Minnesota to support him.

Funny. The book mentions Hedda Hopper - who is William Hopper's mother. William Hopper played Paul Drake in the Perry Mason TV show some three years after this book was published.

Kind of a slow start, but finished with a bang.

Loved it. Great story

Her fingertips moved in slow rhythm up and down the back of his head. "Do you like me?"
"Of course."
"You don't show signs of being overly enthusiastic."
"Did you want me to be overly enthusiastic?" Mason asked.
"Well, you might start with being enthusiastic, and we can carry on from there."

4/6/22

Perry Mason, abogado criminalista, no acepta un cliente hasta que su sexto sentido le dice que es inocente. Y no importa que el caso le ponga contra las cuerdas; conseguirá la absolución. En el último instante, su brillante exposición de los hechos sacará a la luz detalles, aparentemente sin importancia, que delatarán al verdadero culpable. En los años sesenta, el actor Raymond Burr popularizó en televisión al peculiar investigador