Just Another Missing Person

 

I enjoyed Gillian's book "Wrong Place, Wrong Time", so I decided to give this one a try. I think I actually liked it better, it was really good. 

Julia, a police detective, is notified of a missing person, a young lady named Olivia. She and her partner Jonathan start their investigation. Then Julia is threatened by a man who sneaks into her car: stop looking for Olivia and plant evidence framing a man named Matthew for her murder. If she doesn't do it, he will tell everyone that her daughter killed someone the year before and Julia covered it up. 

Julia is pretty distraught but does as he says, willing to do anything to save her daughter. She continues looking for Olivia after planting the evidence, and the case gets stranger. No one actually saw Olivia after she moved into her new house the day before, the housemates just texted with her. She disappeared down a dead-end alley. There are barely any clothes in her room and they're all different sizes. Something isn't adding up. It definitely kept me guessing and it had a happyish ending, so that was nice. 

Counting the Cost; One of Us is Back; The Case of the Restless Redhead; The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary

 

Why yes, I did spend all weekend reading, thanks for asking! (Although, to be fair, I started "One of Us is Back" a few weeks ago. The other three I read in one day: this one Friday, "Redhead" on Saturday, and "Sun Bather" on Sunday. It was that kind of weekend). 

I wanted to see what Jill had to say after reading Jinger's book. Much like her sister, she had nothing bad to say about her parents, in fact, she emphasized how lovely her childhood was and how much she loves them, which is why she felt all the more betrayed when she discovered that her father, Jim Bob, was keeping money that she earned from the show from her. He tricked her into signing a contract the day before her wedding to Derick, and as a result they lost out on an opportunity to be missionaries because they couldn't get out of it. Jim Bob did eventually pay her some of the money he owed her, and their relationship is now on the mend. I'm glad for everyone involved. 

The third book in the "One of Us is Lying" series, after "One of Us is Next", was pretty good. I remembered the first book pretty well, but not the second one (maybe I wasn't paying very close attention?) so I was a bit lost. Easy enough to catch up, though. 

The whole crew from Bayview is back in town for the summer. A mysterious billboard pops up, and it's time for a new game. Jake, who terrorized them in the second book, is released from jail while waiting for a new trial. Everyone is on edge. Turns out there are still a lot of secrets in Bayview, including the identity of Jake's biological father and who really killed the man his mother was having an affair with. 

And then two more fun Perry Mason's. I feel like Gardner really found his groove in the '50s. 

Perry goes to Riverside to get some documents signed by a judge and since he's early, he sits in on an ongoing trial. A young woman named Evelyn is accused of stealing $40,000 of jewelry from a woman who was on her way to Las Vegas to be a bridesmaid in a starlet's wedding. The newbie attorney defending Evelyn isn't doing such a great job, so Perry gives him some advice. The next day Perry reads in the papers that Evelyn was acquitted, all thanks to her amazing attorney. 

Evelyn shows up in Perry's office to thank him in person, and Perry takes a liking to her (no, not like that) and helps her get a job as a waitress. She calls him up, frantic, saying someone tried to run her off the road and she fired two wild shots at the car from a gun she found in her room. Well, that sounds like a frame up, especially when it turns out the driver of the other car is dead--shot in the head. Perry has a fun time mixing up the two different guns in this case (Holcomb never learns). 

"The Sun Bather's Diary" was even better. A young lady named Agnes calls Perry's office. She's been robbed--of everything. She can't come into the office since she doesn't have a stitch of clothing. She was out sun bathing in the nude when her house trailer and car were stolen. Della runs out and meets her with some clothes, and then she tells them what happened. Her father was convicted of stealing close to $400,000 from the bank where he worked. Agnes quit her job to prove his innocence, and kept a detailed diary hidden in her trailer. She thinks it was stolen so someone could read it. 

Perry gets himself mixed up in it all the way to his eyebrows, to the point where Hamilton Burger accuses him of perjury and calls him as a witness for the prosecution, which was all kinds of awesome. Gardner really makes the DA out to be a chump. Perry paid Paul a nice compliment, so that was good. It's about time he learned to appreciate him!
 

The Case of the One Eyed Witness; The Case of the Hesitant Hostess

 

This was a pretty fun one. Perry and Della are dining at a new nightclub Paul recommended (when does Paul have time to go out? Seriously) when Perry receives a mysterious phone call from a woman who refuses to give her name and sounds perfectly terrified. An envelope arrives for him with some money and a cryptic newspaper clipping. To add to the confusion, the cigarette girl at the club gives him a sob story about having her baby taken away from her and put up for adoption, stating that she is part Japanese. 

The newspaper clipping leads them to a man named Carlin. Perry puts Paul on the case, asking him to have operatives shadow the house. When a fire starts, the police are immediately suspicious because Perry and Paul are involved (honestly I don't blame them). It appears as if Carlin perished in the fire. Then a sketchy relator is murdered in his home and his wife patches together a terrible alibi that is easily refuted by a eyewitness. Perry defends the wife, even though she insists she isn't the one who sent him the retainer. At first I thought Perry was going to turn the witness around and show she was mistaken (there was a lot of buildup about glasses and poor eyesight), but no, she was right. The actual conclusion was quite a bit twistier. 

"The Case of the Hesitant Hostess" started out in the courtroom, and I'm not sure I've read a Mason mystery that started that way. Perry is defending Albert Brogan for a stick up job pro bono. Albert's niece, Mary, shows up and insists that her uncle is innocent. The two people in the car that were robbed are clearly lying, but Perry isn't having any luck proving that they perjured themselves. His one witness, Inez Kaylor, vanishes before she can testify. There was a lot of time spent trying to find out if Inez was one person or two (and a fun scene with Perry trying to fight off the advances of a very persistent hostess in the back of a limo).  When a young woman turns up dead, the DA decides to just prosecute Brogan for that, too, since he's already in custody. 

There were some fun moments, and shockingly the solution involved gambling, organized crime, and drugs. Plus Perry and Della running off to Vegas to get married (they didn't, really, but that's what they wanted everyone to think). 

17 Carnations; Dirty Thirty

I've been wanting to read this one for a little while now. Morton talked about how Wallis Simpson was entangled with German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop (the 17 carnations he sent regularly supposedly signified how many times they had slept together). The book also delved into the sheer selfishness of the Duke of Windsor--complaining about his house in Bermuda, demanding more money and respect for his wife, sending a maid to go into a Nazi occupied area to rescue their sheets, etc. He was bugging Winston Churchill and his brother, George VI, over petty nonsense while they were busy fighting a war. 

After the war ended, documents were uncovered, showing the Duke's duplicity and the German's plan to install him as a puppet king and rule England through him. I don't think the Duke and Duchess were deliberately evil, just incredibly oblivious and naïve. 

Still trying to figure out how Evanovich has been writing these for 30 years now. This one was pretty good. 

Morelli has to go out of town to testify in a case and leaves his big dog, Bob, with Stephanie. Stephanie is trying to track down Andy Manley, who worked as a security guard at Plover's jewelry store. The store was robbed one night by Andy's friend Duncan, and the next day Plover discovered jewels from the safe were missing and blamed Andy and fired him. Stephanie has to have Ranger's help (awesome). There was also a fun scene where her mom and Grandma Mazur go with her on a stakeout (Stephanie's car gets wrecked and she can't go on a stakeout in Big Blue, and Stephanie's mom won't let her drive her car) and her mom ends up really getting into chasing Andy and takes the side mirrors off in a tight alley. It was pretty funny. 

Best part: Ranger PROPOSED. Like seriously proposed. Then Morelli comes home and *he* proposes. Wowza.