The Case of the Perjured Parrot

I find these old school mysteries very entertaining. Although I've found some of the ones written in the 1930's to have unfortunate very un-PC references, I didn't notice any in this one. A wealthy eccentric is murdered in a remote cabin with only a parrot as witness. Was it the soon-to-be ex-wife named Helen or another Helen who has been romantically linked to the victim? Was the pet parrot really at the crime scene? And what about the check forgeries that the victim discovered shortly before his death? Lots of twists and turns in this one made it a fun ride.

We had stories with a cat, a dog and a canary. Now it is time for a story with a parrot. And this parrot is found next to a dead man - a very wealthy man who seems to have somewhat complicated personal life - two wives, named the same, not knowing about each other, knowing him under different names.

Mason is hired by the son - expecting a legal battle from who he knows to be the wife; not even realizing that there is another wife as well. And in order for Mason to solve the murder and to find out what happened, he needs to untangle the personal life of the victim first.

This is one of the very rare mysteries that do not take place in LA so we do not see the usual cast of adversaries for Mason (some of them make an appearance but it is a show more local cop and DA that go against him). The story is full of the usual references to the era it is written in and some of them are fascinating (the air travel schedules and the air travel details are... interesting for example) but the story as a whole is weaker - the coincidences are happening a bit too often.

A decent entry but nowhere near the better ones I've read in the series. Still a good read though. show less

Can a parrot be a witness in a murder case? What is it he says that makes the D.A. want him for a witness?

Did the old man have two wives? Was his divorce final on the first one? Was his marriage legal to the second one? Why did he have two different names?

These are some of the questions that come about in this case when Charles Sabin asks Perry Mason to find the murderer of Fremont Sabin.

Perry, Della and Paul, once again find, themselves untangling the many threads that form this web of mystery around the murder of an eccentric millionair who prefers acting like someone who doesn't own much. With an aggressive cop who has a desire to catch Perry Mason off guard and sideline him and a local sheriff who may seem slow but really wants to show more be sure the facts are real, Perry has his hand full trying to solve this mystery and not get tangled up with the law. show less

I read the Perry Mason books when I was a girl - a very long time ago. I loved them at that time and when I heard they were available for my Kindle I really wanted to try one and see if I would still like them I did! This was good story with great clues. By the end of the story I had figured out who did it and I loved getting there. Many of the characters and scenes are dated but I didn't care. I was involved with them anyway. I am certainly going to read some more of the series.

Everyone gets used and abused when a son asks for help regarding his father. No one goes through this case without getting singed, angry and frustrated. Wits are kept about and the case is solved but not how you expect it to end. Fascinating.

In "Perjured Parrot" a wealthy man is murdered and his parrot apparently knows the name of the killer, only the parrot wasn't in the room when he was killed, and both the man's soon to be ex-wife and his current new wife share the same first name. Perry does a brilliant job of cross examining Sargent Holcomb on the stand, first to show how faulty his interpretation of the evidence is, and then to get the real killer so scared of being caught he flees. This one had a really happy ending.

My father was interested in reading the very first Perry Mason mystery and we think this was it. (Ryan pointed out to me - I don't know Ryan, but he seems to know what he's talking about - that the first Perry Mason was The Case of the Velvet Claws.) He pointed out to me that the language is different, but he couldn't quite say how. I think it reads like a radio script myself.

Published in 1939, there's a quote which seems descriptive of today's economy.
"You might be interested in his economic philosophy, Mr. Mason. He believed men attached too much importance to money as such. He believed a dollar represented a token of work preformed, that men were given these tokens to hold until they needed the product of work performed by some show more other man, that anyone who tried to get a token without giving his best work in return was an economic counterfeiter. He felt that most of our depression troubles had been caused by a universal desire to get as many tokens as possible in return for as little work as possibly - that too many men were trying to get lots of tokens without doing any work. He said men should cease to think in terms of tokens and think, instead, only in terms of work performed as conscientiously as possible." show less