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Loading... The Case of the Haunted Husband (1941)by Erle Stanley Gardner
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Interesting twists and resolution. Perry, Della, and their detective friend are on top of the game again! =) ( ) "I work all the time, the later the better. A man does his best work when those around him are asleep." He waved a short, thick arm in a sweeping gesture which included a quarter circle of generalization. "I mean the people in the city. There's a lot of telepathy, not individual telepathy so much as group telepathy, mind beating on mind, chaining you into a convention of business humdrum. What do you want?" Hitchhikers, Movie Producers, & Secrets When you open up one of Gardner's Perry Mason novels, you find something which is very much like a classic pulp detective novel with a strange situation, a possible frame-up, corpses, vague clues, and keeping evidence close to the vest until Mason can figure out what it all means. You also get courtroom scenes including the kind of courtroom examinations and gotcha moments that seldom occur in real trials. Unlike the classic pulp detective, Mason is an attorney and doesn't get involved in gunfights and brawls and the like. This mystery opens up on a pitch-black night on a deserted highway with a young blonde hitchhiker naively thumbing her way to Hollywood, a creepy driver who picks her up, a flask of booze, and a terrible accident. This isn't really Mason's usual kind of case, but somehow the earthy goodness of the blonde's friend convinces him that he needs to clear her name, particularly when it means going up against the power of the Hollywood elite. It is a thrilling ride as the story develops and gets ever more complex. Perry Mason mysteries are not necessarily meant to be solved before he's ready to unveil the secret to the riddle. And the solution here is rather hopelessly complex, perhaps too complex to really be satisfying. no reviews | add a review
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Aspiring actress Stephane Olger just wants to be in pictures. But she may end up in mug shots instead when she gets herself caught up in a crime. Shortly after quitting her job and moving to Hollywood, she is picked up by a well-dressed man while hitchhiking. The man loses control of the car and they end up in a horrible accident. Both Stephane and the driver escape unscathed but the strange man flees the scene leaving Stephane to face a charge of manslaughter.Stephane's rich uncle hires Perry Mason to defend her and he and the private detective Paul Drake immediately start gathering evidence. It turns out that the car, of course, was stolen, and belongs to a Hollywood producer who has been in contact with the mystery man who is from San Francisco. A woman has been promised a job by him, but is given one by Perry Mason instead. She, too, disappears, and in another room of the hotel her luggage is found with a man who has been shot. In the courtroom Perry Mason discovers many other facts, but in the meantime the film producer's chauffeur is murdered, making his task much harder.It's up to Perry Mason to find the truth behind a suspicious scenario starring a menacing movie mogul, a hoodwinked housewife, and a man no one has ever seen--alive No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.52Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1900-1944LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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