The Case of the Nervous Accomplice

 

I'm fairly confident I read this one before I started keeping really good track of the books I read. Sybil Harlan's speech in the beginning about how to make her husband want to stay married to her sounded so familiar, and I had that same feeling throughout the rest of the book. 

Sybil's husband has strayed from the ranch (as Perry put it). She doesn't want a divorce, however, she wants her husband back and she's hatched a kind of brilliant plan to do it. The woman Enright has been fooling around (Roxy) with has some property and Sybil wants Perry to buy stock in the company that's looking to do business with Roxy and then throw a wrench in the deal. That will make Roxy pester Enright about getting her deal pushed through, and when Enright comes home to Sybil she'll be the picture of delightful, loving wife who eases all his cares. You gotta admit, it's smart. 

Perry does just that, but then there's an added twist: Lutz, the man Perry bought the stock from, turns up murdered in the house next door to Roxy's, shot with Enright's gun that Sybil just happened to have. There was a whole lot of trickery going on (I remembered the part about the cab very vividly) and in the end Perry was able to clear his client. It was really fun, I enjoyed this one a lot.