The Case of the Demure Defendant

If you admit to murder under the influence of a truth serum, can it be used against you? This is what Perry Mason need to find out if he wants to save his newest client. The biggest problem (or one of them) is that noone considers the death a murder until Nadine Farr admits to it.

The doctor is really worried about that, goes to Perry, Perry decides to investigate and things go the wrong way. The police get involved after a nurse talks when she should not and Hamilton Burger (Perry's favorite DA) is out for blood. Our lawyer is accused of evidence tempering and worse and it is not just Nadine that is in trouble anymore - for even if she does not get to jail, it looks like Perry will.

So it is time for urgent investigation (Della and show more Drake to the rescue in their respective roles) and the clock is clicking. Mason uses everything he knows to try to save himself but the DA is convinced that this is his chance to take him down and Perry's reputation becomes a hindrance - everyone seem to think that he actually had done something bad.

The end is as satisfying as it can be. It is a tightly plotted mystery, brilliantly executed. If most of the later ones are like that, I will have a lot of fun reading the series. show less

The Case of the Demure Defendant (P. Mason #51) (1956) by Erle Stanley Gardner. A young woman confesses to poisoning a man is the case set before Perry mason. That she was in a psychiatrist’s care at the moment and she had been under the influence of a “truth” serum at the time, and the entire conversation was tape recorded, is not the big problem. The problem is the moral dilemma facing the doctor. Should he tell the police or is the confession well within the rules of patient-doctor confidentiality?
Turns out that doesn’t matter when the nurse who was present for the exam blabs to her boyfriend, a police detective.
Yet another nice setup for a very amazing case that before it ends has Mason up against a wall. The D.A.’s show more office spreads the word that the famous lawyer has stopped beyond the bounds, well beyond them, when Mason might very well have manipulated the evidence.
A quote from the book: ‘Hamilton Burger said, with what amounted to as a sneer, “Counsel has continually resorted to all sorts of ingenious trickery in connection with his cases. This is one time he went too far and now that he is trapped he realizes that his entire professional reputation is at stake, It is distasteful to me to have to make these comments but I suggest that the court consider the motivation.”
Like every other Stanley novel this has many twists and turns, the evidence points every which way and the truth seems to be too well hidden for justice to be properly served. But Mason, Street and Drake are on the case and nothing will stop them from bringing the lying perpetrators out of hiding and into prison. show less

Dr. Denair's patient, Madine Farr, has made some seriously incriminating statements during a session under the influence of truth serum. The doctor is using it to unlock what is in her mind that is causing her such stress that affects her health. What makes things so difficult is these statements have been recorded.

Dr. Denair consults with Perry Mason for advise on what to do. When Mason speaks with Nadine, she is very matter-of-fact about the whole thing.

Mason doesn't feel her statement is true and sets out to prove it. Doing this puts him in a compromising situation that could cost him his liveihood. Something the DA would love to see happen.

I've been a fan of Perry Mason since I first read him in my teens and still enjoy the books.

The book opens with a young woman confessing to murder while under sodium pentathol --confessing to a doctor (psychiatrist) who does not intend to report the confession to the police. He does report it to Perry Mason. He says that he knew that the woman was feeling guilty about something, but thought it might be an "interrupted pregnancy" (abortion). He persuaded her to take the truth serum, adn got an unexpected confession to murder. I believe I read any earlier copy of this --maybe in my parents collection -- and bought this later.

One of the best of the Perry Mason series. This is one of the first Perry Mason novels I ever read, back in 1991 or so. It impressed me then - and it still impressed me 20 years later.

"Oh, if the court pleases," Hamilton Burger said, "this is very evidently a technicality."
"The defendant serves notice," Mason said, "that under the circumstances of this case the defendant intends to rely upon every technicality which the law gives for her protection. These things the prosecutor sneeringly refers to as technicalities are simply the safeguards that the law provides a defendant to prevent a defendant from being unjustly convicted. The defense intends to insist that none of these safeguards be ignored."

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