Perry is visited by a poised young woman named Stephanie Falkner. Her father was murdered some time before, leaving her 40% of a modest casino in Las Vegas. She's being pressured to sell her interest to a man named George Casselman. Perry gets a call from a client of his, Homer Garvin, Sr., who asks him to do whatever he can to help Stephanie out. Apparently his son, Homer Garvin Jr., had been dating Miss Falkner, and Sr. thought she was going to be his daughter in law someday, and bought 15% of the stake in the casino to give to her as a wedding gift. Together, he and Stephanie have over 50%. Unfortunately, Jr. has just married a showgirl he barley knows. When Casselman is found murdered, there are too many clues, too many suspects, and too many guns: Garvin Sr. bought three identical guns, gave one to Jr., and kept two for himself. *One* of those guns is the murder weapon, but is it Jr.'s, or the did Mason switch guns right under Tragg's nose?
It never ceases to amaze me in these books how many times people make appointments to see people in the middle of the night. Casselman had like, four, appointments between eleven and midnight. He was literally shuffling people out the back door while inviting others in the front. It gave Perry plenty of red herrings to work with!
Mildred Crest has had a terrible day. She gets a phone call at work from her fiance: not only is he calling off their engagement, he's about to be pinched for embezzlement and is fleeing town. Mildred is horrified and embarrassed. Her boss sends her home for the day, since she's clearly not feeling well, and Mildred impetuously decides to leave town. She cleans out her savings account, hops in her car, and starts driving. She doesn't have a destination in mind, she just needs to get out of Oceanside and clear her head. At a gas station, a young woman who introduces herself as Fern Driscoll asks if Mildred will give her a ride. Mildred tells her she doesn't know where she's going, and Fern says that suits her fine. Mildred lets her in the car, and as they drive Fern tells her a little of her story: she's from the Midwest, she's in a terrible bind, and she wants to kill herself. She taunts Mildred to drive the car off the steep cliff of the hill they're climbing. Mildred is nonplussed when Fern grabs the wheel and deliberately crashes the car. Mildred manages to escape, but Fern is crushed to death instantly. Mildred makes a bold decision: she'll take the dead woman's identity and start over. She switches purses and accidentally lights the car on fire, then hightails it out of there.
Mildred makes it to L.A., where she starts work as a secretary under the name Fern Driscoll in the same building where Mason has his office. The papers report Mildred Crest died in a car accident, and also that she was two months' pregnant. Mildred is tracked down by a would be blackmailer who has discovered she's not Fern, and she consults with Mason. When the blackmailer is stabbed with an ice pick and dies, Mildred is not only on the hook for his murder but for stealing Fern's identity. The "Long Legged Models" was about the musical guns, this one was about the musical ice picks. There were six instead of three, which made it really fun trying to keep track of which ice pick was the real murder weapon!
I took a break from Mason to read Anthony Horowitz's newest, "The Word is Murder". He wrote himself into the story, which is usually a bad idea (Stephen King, I'm looking at you) but it worked quite well in this case, he carried it off brilliantly. Diana Cowper visits a funeral parlor to make arrangements for her own funeral. Just in time, too, she's murdered that evening. Former Detective Hawthorne approaches Horowitz with a deal for him: Horowitz can join him on his quest to catch the killer and then write a book about it, and they can split the profits. Horowitz is hesitant at first, but something about the case appeals to him, so he agrees. It turns out Diana accidentally killed a little boy almost ten years earlier while driving without her glasses. She crippled his twin brother, and got off with a slap on the wrist from the judge. Her son is a famous actor, living out in Hollywood, and when he comes home for his mother's funeral, he is murdered that afternoon. There were plenty of red herrings all over the place: just when I thought I had it figured out, I was proved wrong. Which was great! I enjoyed it a lot.
Back to Mason. Arlene Ferris is working late one night, and when she goes to leave her car won't start. Luckily, the dashing playboy son of the owner, Loring Lamont, happens by and offers her a ride home. Arlene accepts. After she's in the car, he remembers he promised to take some important papers out to someone at his father's country place and promises Arlene it won't take long, and he'll take her out to dinner afterwards to make up for it. Arlene reluctantly agrees. They get to the country place and no one's there, so Lamont makes a few phone calls and gets angry when he finds out the man's been delayed and his father expects him to wait for him. Arlene is agreeable, though, and they make dinner, turn on some music, have some drinks. Then Lamont gets down to what he
really wants. Arlene is offended and runs out of the house in a desperate attempt to protect her virtue. Lamont chases after her in his car and gets out to follow her on foot. Arlene manages to backtrack and jumps in his car (silly boy left the keys in it) and takes off. She parks in front of his apartment building in front of a fire hydrant, hoping he gets towed, and takes a cab home. She calls her good friend, Madge (who, incidentally, got Arlene the job at Lamont's business simply by making a phone call, which tells you something about Madge's connection to the Lamonts) to tell her what happened. Madge is properly sympathetic. Arlene goes to visit Mason the next day to tell him what happened and figure out if there's anything they can do about Lamont. She knows she's not the only girl he's tried this on, and she wants to stop him. Well, someone stopped Lamont for good the night before: he was found murdered, with the knife still in his back.
There were some great scenes in this one with Mason and Arlene's friend Madge. It was interesting to see him flirting with someone besides Della.
This is the exact copy I own of the "Case of the Empty Tin" and the "Case of the Drowsy Mosquito". I absolutely love how cheesy and silly the cover is, so I had to include it.
I read the "Empty Tin" first (it's from 1941, "Mosquito" is 1943. Why "Mosquito" is first I don't know. I hate when publishers do that. Almost all of my Mason's are like that, since most of the ones I own are 2 in 1s). Housewife and mother extraordinaire Florence Gentrie spies an empty tin on her shelf of preserves in the cellar that she knows darn well wasn't there before. Why would anyone put an empty tin on a shelf, all sealed up? She tosses it in the scrap bin, but her sister in law, spinster Rebecca, thinks it's quite a mystery and makes a big deal out of puzzling it out. Florence doesn't have time for such nonsense: she has a big house to run, a servant to look after, three children, and a husband, not to mention a boarder and a pesky sister in law. That night, the household is woken up by a gunshot. Someone was shot at the house next door, but the tenant and his housekeeper have both disappeared. Coincidentally, one of Mason's clients lives on the second floor of the house, the shooting happened in the downstairs apartment. His client is a recluse who is in hiding and doesn't want publicity, so he begs Mason to solve the crime and keep him out of it. Mason starts investigating and he too is puzzled by the empty tin, especially when they find the lid has what appears to be a secret code etched into it. Fun! There's a great scene where Mason poses as Tragg's brother up in San Francisco.
And finally, "The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito". Salty Bowers comes to Mason for his friend, Banning Clarke. He and Banning were prospectors together, and Banning got rich and used his money to buy a big mansion by the ocean and got married. It nearly killed him, according to Salty. Banning was meant for the outdoor life, and living indoors has weakened his heart. He has a nurse on premises as well as a housekeeper. Mason and Della go with Salty to pay a visit to Banning and find him camping out in a cactus garden away from the main house. It was Salty's idea, to restore Banning to health, and it seems to be working. Since his wife died almost two years earlier, Banning has been eager to return to the desert with Salty and continue their prospecting. Banning's household is an odd one. His former mother in law and brother in law live in the main house. When his wife died, she left everything to them, including the stock in his mining company Banning put in her name. So now he shares the company with them. The live in housekeeper, her husband and daughter all live there, as well as his nurse. Banning wants Mason to represent the housekeeper's husband in a fraud suit brought on by his former brother in law. The brother in law, Jim, claims the old prospector salted a mine to get him to buy it and it's worthless. The whole cast of colorful characters appeals to Mason, and he agrees.
Jim and his mother are poisoned that night, seemingly by arsenic, but thanks to the fact that the nurse, Velma, was on hand they pull through. Mason and Della come to take care of some business, and they are poisoned! Luckily, they pull through as well (seriously, why try to kill a bunch of people with arsenic when there's a nurse in the house?). Unfortunately, Banning Clarke isn't as lucky. Even though he's dying from arsenic poisoning, someone shoots him. Overkill, as they say. It actually reminded me a bit of
Kurt Cobain's demise. Drugs or guns, people. You don't need both.
At any rate, there were no courtroom scenes in this one ("The Empty Tin" didn't have any, either) but it was still fun. Mason proposes to Della in the end, but she turns him down, knowing full well he doesn't want a wife and to settle down, but his brush with death made him think he did.
This book makes me want to go camping, which is something I never thought I'd say :)
