The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

“I count eight,” said Perry Mason, meaning brunettes.

They were almost identical brunettes, at that, all standing at consecutive corners on the south side of the street, and they added up to such a beautiful dark mystery that even Perry Mason, famous connoisseur of fine murders that he is, was so fascinated he almost began a new career — behind bars.

Mathematically Eva Martell was perfect: her height was five feet four and one-half inches, her weight one hundred and eleven, her waist twenty-four, her bust thirty-two.

Because of these dimensions, curiously enough, she attracted dead bodies...

She has also attracted one of Gardner’s top voltage plots, the kind that keeps Perry Mason and Della Street sizzling around in bizarre clues, counter clues and extra-legal activities. The kind that keeps Gardner readers up till dawn convinced that at last they are going to out-mastermind him.

Gardner knows how to make his characters come to life. He also knows how to kill them off under completely baffling circumstances. He doesn’t believe in tricking his readers; it might be dangerous. So he gives you all the evidence with machine- gun rapidity — and lets you trick yourself. Even the most successful lawyers and criminologists come to a bad end the minute they tangle with a Gardner plot. Which is what makes him so successful.

With this thought in mind we leave you, on the brink of one more Perry Mason mystery that anyone can figure out — wrong.