The Case of the Calendar Girl

The Case of the Calendar Girl, by Erle Stanley Gardner This book is dedicated to Hubert Winston Smith, A.B., M.B.A., LL.B., M.D. who is a professor of law at the Law School of the University of Texas, Professor of Legal Medicine at the Medical School, and is Director of the Law-Science Institute. As special counsel to a convicted murderer awaiting execution he found new evidence and argued this case to get a reversal of conviction by the Louisiana Supreme Court. A contractor is getting grief from building inspectors on a very important job. He is advised to consult with a "public relations expert" (who quotes a price to fix the problems). As Ansley leaves the estate, he has a narrow escape from an accident; the other car overturns. Ansley sees a young woman, who calls for help and a ride home to her apartment. But something worries him. He calls on Perry Mason for advice. When Perry checks up, he finds this woman used a false identity; and her car was stolen. The next day the "public relations expert" is found murdered; the gun that did is found in Ansley's car. Perry Mason and Paul Drake must quickly investigate to uncover the facts. They track down the woman from the fake address (using a real person's identity can provide a clue to the imposter). An undeveloped negative of the model is found in the murdered man's camera (is it proof she was the last person to see him alive?). Using the facts uncovered by the investigation Perry Mason gets the charges against Ansley dropped at the preliminary hearing. The model is arrested for the murder; she worked at the store where the murder weapon was stolen. But she hires Perry Mason as her advocate, and Perry Mason gets the charges dropped again! By now the facts develop to point to the real killer. The remarks of Lieutenant Tragg on driving to avoid accidents are still valuable. If you can only read one Perry Mason mystery, this provides a good example of Erle Stanley Gardner's stories.

The Case of the Calendar Girl, by Erle Stanley Gardner This book is dedicated to Hubert Winston Smith, A.B., M.B.A., LL.B., M.D. who is a professor of law at the Law School of the University of Texas, Professor of Legal Medicine at the Medical School, and is Director of the Law-Science Institute. As special counsel to a convicted murderer awaiting execution he found new evidence and argued this case to get a reversal of conviction by the Louisiana Supreme Court. A contractor is getting grief from building inspectors on a very important job. He is advised to consult with a "public relations expert" (who quotes a price to fix the problems). As Ansley leaves the estate, he has a narrow escape from an accident; the other car overturns. Ansley sees a young woman, who calls for help and a ride home to her apartment. But something worries him. He calls on Perry Mason for advice. When Perry checks up, he finds this woman used a false identity; and her car was stolen. The next day the "public relations expert" is found murdered; the gun that did is found in Ansley's car. Perry Mason and Paul Drake must quickly investigate to uncover the facts. They track down the woman from the fake address (using a real person's identity can provide a clue to the imposter). An undeveloped negative of the model is found in the murdered man's camera (is it proof she was the last person to see him alive?). Using the facts uncovered by the investigation Perry Mason gets the charges against Ansley dropped at the preliminary hearing. The model is arrested for the murder; she worked at the store where the murder weapon was stolen. But she hires Perry Mason as her advocate, and Perry Mason gets the charges dropped again! By now the facts develop to point to the real killer. The remarks of Lieutenant Tragg on driving to avoid accidents are still valuable. If you can only read one Perry Mason mystery, this provides a good example of Erle Stanley Gardner's stories.

Perry Mason and Della Street are out having a quiet dinner and a man (George Ansley) approaches them with an unusual story. He had just left a tense meeting with a crooked politician on his palatial estate and when he was on the driveway a car came from the other direction, sideswiped him and then crashed. He went to the aid of the occupants and found a pretty young woman lying unconscious and in typical Gardner fashion, her skirt was up near her hips. Thinking she is unconscious, Ansley starts off for help but hears her cry out before he can go to far. Going back, he finds her conscious and coherent. She insists she is unhurt and asks for a ride back to her residence. Ansley complies and manages to get a couple of kisses in before he drops her off. However, he has been thinking about the incident and is concerned about the legal ramifications, so seeing Mason at a table, asks for his assistance. Mason, Street and Ansley go back to the estate, looking for the car. At 11PM, the gates close and guard dogs are released onto the grounds. The dogs come after them, so Mason and company are forced to make a hasty retreat over the wall. This starts a convoluted series of events, as the politician is found murdered and Ansley is accused of the crime. There are several twists to the plot, as the chief aide to the politician constantly changes his story on the witness stand, and after hard cross-examination by Perry Mason, it is clear that Ansley could not have committed the murder. The person who becomes the prime suspect then hires Perry Mason to defend her and the case goes back to court. This time, the judicial finger of guilt is pointed in the right direction and the perpetrator is apprehended. While this story is in many ways a typical Perry Mason adventure, there are enough potential murderers to keep you guessing which one did it. The final piece of the puzzle, where an apparently solid alibi is destroyed, comes very late, climactically determining the identity of the murderer. I enjoyed the story, it was interesting and the conversation Mason has with Lieutenant Tragg is one of the best moments in the Mason series. It portrays them as adversaries, yet clearly with a great deal of mutual and professional respect.