The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

Well that was fun! I’ve never read a Perry Mason before. My mother-in-law told me she read this one years ago, in Czech, in Czechoslovakia. She said it was as if it took place on another planet.
It kind of struck me that way as well, reading it in 2018 San Diego instead of 1950s San Diego.

Inconsistently interesting and last minute luck really saved the day here. Courtroom antic kinds of amusing with the new DA and his sidekick, but abrupt ending took away the full congratulatory wrap-up. We didn't find out full resolution on the second charge that hung over the defendants head the first half of the book either, nor really much of a motive that's as solid as usual.

Mystery starts with Perry Mason, working late in his office, glimpsing the legs of a pretty young woman on the fire escape. This leads him into a proxy fight between a dubiously remarried mining entrepreneur (he got a Mexican divorce) and his first wife.

Mason grinned, took the keys and say, "You do speak good English, don't you, Pancho?"
"What the hell do you think I go to school for?" Pancho asked.

COLLECTION UN MYSTERE