The Case Of The Crooked Candle [Hardcover]

Erle Stanley Gardner (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 220 pages
• Publisher: Morrow; Early Edition edition (1947)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000GTABE0
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,187,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The reliance on a factual paradox rather than official incompetence makes this one of the better Mason stories, February 18, 2010

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Case of the Crooked Candle (Mass Market Paperback)

This Perry Mason story is one better than many of the others in that the mystery is solved by thinking through the facts of the location of a dead body, the ebb and flow of tides and the position of a half-burned candle. The combination of the three leads to an inherent contradiction in that not all of them can simultaneously be true yet all are in fact true. Of course it is Mason that is able to see through the contradiction and understand that it all will make sense if one assumption is dropped.
A negative is that Hamilton Burger is once again out to upstage Mason and in their zest to nail Mason the police are somewhat blind to the facts of the case. Della Street is set up by the police and taken into custody. Lieutenant Tragg admits to this tactic, something that would have opened him up to legal jeopardy. While official incompetence is rampant in the world, when it is repeatedly used as a prime tactic the use grows thin.
Nevertheless, the apparent paradox of irreconcilable facts dominates the official incompetence, making this a story that you scratch your head over as you try to see your way through to the proper conclusion.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Puzzle of the Second Stain, February 28, 2007

By 

Acute Observer (N. Jersey Shore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Case of the Crooked Candle (Paperback)

The Case of the Crooked Candle

A big truck came to a sudden stop and a car with Mr. Arthur Bickley and wife Sarah ran into it. This couple went to see Perry Mason. The company name can not be found. But their law firm called and offered a settlement. Perry gets his clients a much larger sum - the truck company wants a quick settlement. Perry remembers another client connected to this company (Chapter 1). Investigator Paul Drake learns some strange news about the Karakul Company. Perry wants more information. He tries to contact Fred Milfield, the owner. Perry meets his wife Daphne. Then Lieutenant Tragg shows up - Fred has been murdered (Chapter 3)! In Chapter 5 Carol Burbank drives the car to lose any tails. But she and Perry do not find her father at the motel. When they stop at a favorite restaurant they find Roger Burbank with Lt. Tragg (Chapter 6).

Perry gets Drake's report and goes to see Harry Van Nuys. He learns more about Daphne and Fred Milfield (Chapter 8). They find Douglas Burwell has left San Francisco and come to Los Angeles. They visit Douglas and get his story (Chapter 10). Then they go to visit the sheepherder living on Skinner Hills, and learn about Palermo's visit to Milfield's yacht, where the body was found (Chapter 11). When Della goes to meet Carol they meet a stranger who isn't a real friend (Chapter 13). Della shows she knows something about her rights (Chapter 14). It seems that Della's aid to Carol has landed her in hot water. Carol Burbank finally tells Perry the truth (Chapter 15). Then Lt. Tragg shows up to arrest her for Fred's murder.

The Preliminary Hearing starts in Chapter 16. This brings out all the testimony of the witnesses. A photograph shows a candle with wax on each side of the candle - it was perpendicular when burning. In Chapter 17 a timeline of the tides is used to correlate it to the known facts. When the boat tilted over the body would slide to the bottom at low tide, but wound not return when the boat leveled. Discrepancies of testimony result from witnesses who sometimes lie; the murderer will always lie. When Perry and Della visit the yacht to test the effect of low tide an unknown visitor shows up (Chapter 18). In the judge's chambers Perry comes up with an explanation for the second blood stain! The re-investigation clears Perry's clients.

This book has the usual movement and events in a 'Perry Mason' story, but the plot seems below Gardner's usual standards. The background tells about life in 1944 Los Angeles (a hint about butter rationing).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Murder on a Yacht, Riddle of the Crooked Candle, January 14, 2004

By 

APRICOT "ryoko" (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Case of the Crooked Candle (Mass Market Paperback)

24th Perry Mason Mystery written in 1944. You can enjoy very complicated mystery entangled with various circumstantial evidence (a crooked candle, the tide, the corpse's position, blood-stained footprints and so on) and time element.