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Helen Cadmus was dead--but how had it happened? Suicide, most people said. She jumped off that millionaire's yacht in a fit of despair, her body was never found, and the case was closed. The story was too neat to suit Perry Mason. It didn't add up. Somebody was concealing the truth about Helen's death, and he was going to uncover it even if it killed him. That's how Mason fell into a trap set by three killers--two humans and one grinning gorillaTags
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Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason novels are always masterpieces of deductive reasoning. Mason, a shrewd calculating attorney, sort of stumbles by accident into this case by buying a drowned secretary's diaries at auction - offering a bid merely to get the auction rolling. This case involves an estate of an eccentric millionaire of the Howard Hughes variety - whose estate is sort of like the Island of Dr. Moreau - filled with massive gorillas who are the subjects of homicidal experiments. This is to put it mildly an unusual Perry Mason book, but it's well written, cleverly plotted, and an easy read.
Weird premise, but then, that is ESG for you. Nice, satisfactory, fast pace.
This book seemed less enthralling from the get-go as many of his others - until the end, then it was quite gripping.
"She never told the truth about anything in her life. She's a congenital liar. She's a plotter, a sneak, a vicious, backbiting, nasty-minded woman, and she killed Benjamin Addicks. I know it just as well as I know I’m sitting here."
Mason said, “How do you know it?"
"I don’t know it by any evidence, but I’m absolutely certain that’s the case."
Mason said, “How do you know it?"
"I don’t know it by any evidence, but I’m absolutely certain that’s the case."
As much as I loved watching the Perry Mason series on TV the old series, I have to admit the books are a lot different and I am surprised at the content allowed back then, aka style.
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Author Information
877+ Works 30,760 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 title
- The Case of the Grinning Gorilla
- Original publication date
- 1952
- People/Characters
- Perry Mason; Della Street
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Statistics
- Members
- 216
- Popularity
- 151,510
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (3.77)
- Languages
- English, German, Lithuanian, Portuguese
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 13
- ASINs
- 17
