The Case of the Musical Cow

by Erle Stanley Gardner

Rob Trenton (01)

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Rob Trenton, an American dog trainer by profession, makes a tour of Paris and Switzerland with fellow passengers from his ship. Artist Linda Carroll arouses his curiosity. Strange Merton Ostrander joins them for the return. When New York Customs search Rob for contraband after a fake tip-off, Rob's life turns upside down.

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5 reviews
Despite the author and even the form of the title, this is not a Perry Mason case, but an example of a fairly common genre of the period in which a swell-meaning young man gets unintentionally involved in a complex stirig of crimes; in this case, he finds himself with a carful of smuggled drugs and a dead man shot with his own pistol. In the absence of Perry Mason, the case is solved by the aid some honest and competent state police, whom Gardner apparently created by way of apology for the ways the forces of the law often appear in the Mason stories.
Another side of E.S. Gardner for those of us most used to Perry Mason. Man who is being framed is helped out of the tangle of circumstantial evidence by a competent and likeable pathologist. Romance and period (1950's) details.
A tightly constructed mystery that is cleared up without Perry Mason.
Rob Trenton ocupaba una mesa en la acera, la segunda tarde consecutiva, consumiendo Cinzano a intervalos y cuidadosamente espaciado; así podía mantener perpetuamente ocupada su mesa, dándose cuenta, bien a pesar suyo, de que la ley del tanteo es una cosa traicionera. Cada uno de los pelmazos que a bordo del trasatlántico él había eludido durante el viaje, insistían en sentarse en la silla vacante que tenía a su lado, diciéndole que tenían tiempo suficiente para ver París. Pero la única persona que Rob quería desesperadamente ver, no apareció.

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877+ Works 30,752 Members
Mystery writer Erle Gardner was born on July 17, 1889 in Malden, Massachusetts. In 1902, he had moved to Oroville, CA. His parents could not afford to send a second son to college, so he worked in a legal office as a clerk reading law. He spent a short time at Valparaiso University in Indiana but had to drop out because of an illegal boxing show more exhibition. He continued to travel throughout California and read law at several law offices and finally passed the bar in 1911, at the age of 21. He married Natalie Francis Beatrice Talbert on April 9, 1912. In 1916, he formed the Law Firm of Orr and Gardner in Venture, CA. Gardner used many pseudonyms such as Charles Green, Kyle Corning and Grant Holiday. While working as an attorney, he began writing fiction. In 1921, "Nellie's Naughty Nighty" was published in the pulp magazine Breezy Stories. He had a goal of writing 100,000 words a month and would sometimes write two or more stories a day. In 1923, "The Shrieking Skeleton" was sold to the Black Mask Magazine. In the 1930's, Gardner had two manuscripts that were rejected and than "rediscovered" by Thayer Hobson, the president of the William Morrow Publishing Company, and rewritten as courtroom mysteries. During this process, the character Perry Mason was born. In 1933, the first Perry Mason book was written, "The Case of the Velvet Claws." The next one was entitled "The Case of the Sulky Girl" and they were followed by more than eighty additional Mason mysteries. Gardner died on March 11, 1970. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

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Common Knowledge

Original publication date
1950
People/Characters
Rob Trenton

Classifications

Genres
Fiction and Literature, Mystery
DDC/MDS
813Literature & rhetoricAmerican literature in EnglishAmerican fiction in English
LCC
PZ3Language and LiteratureFiction and juvenile belles lettresFiction and juvenile belles lettresFiction in English
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Members
134
Popularity
244,544
Reviews
5
Rating
½ (3.74)
Languages
6 — Czech, Dutch, English, Estonian, German, Italian
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
9
ASINs
14