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Art student Maxine Lindsay, as the guest of her mentor, art dealer Colin Durant, attends a reception aboard the yacht of millionaire Otto Olney, who is unveiling his newest purchase, a $130,000 Gauguin. When Durant confides that the painting is a fake, Maxine becomes involved in a complicated series of deceptions. Soon gallery owner Leslie Rankin threatens Maxine. Perry Mason is called in, a beatnik artist is accused of painting the fake, and Durant is found fully clothed in Maxine's shower, show more shot dead with her pistol. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
An excellent Perry Mason mystery. Some shocking developments, and an interesting who-done-it, but not quite as spectacular as a few others. I like the relationship Mason has with Tragg. I liked the plot twist of having Mason fall victim to a con game - and watching him fight to get out of being made out a fool was interesting. I last read this 22 years ago.
For some reason this story, compared to many others, did not hold my interest from beginning to end, and the middle got a bit confusing. There is some "playing" in court that is not usual but the story didn't hold as much chemistry with me as many of the other books. We do get a repeat of the humor of Perry's pacing and Drake's office being insufficient for this thinking style, which has continued to be a running joke of the series.
An art dealer claims a painting recently sold for a high price is an obvious fake. He said this to a young woman named Maxine Lindsay, and so she is Perry Mason's star witness in the seller's suit for slander. Then she vanishes leaving a dead body behind in her apartment, and Mason finds he is (as usual)involved in a murder case. The biography of the painter seems suggested by the life of Gauguin.
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Author Information
871+ Works 30,731 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
Series
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Case of the Reluctant Model
- Original title
- The Case of the Reluctant Model
- Original publication date
- 1962
- People/Characters
- Perry Mason; Della Street; Paul Drake; Collin M. Durant; Lattimer Rankin; Lt. Arthur Tragg (show all 7); Goring Gilbert
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 220
- Popularity
- 148,169
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.54)
- Languages
- 5 — Czech, English, German, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 16
- ASINs
- 15
