Customer Reviews

Perry Mason in the Case of the Burning Bequest: Based on Characters Created by Erle Stanley Gardner

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This is the first Perry Mason mystery I've ever read. If you liked the television series, you'll find all the same characters in this book. It's a good mystery and moves swiftly. It reads a bit too much like a script, however. There's almost no attention to scenery. The reader is given almost no information of what the characters think and feel.

The Case of the Burning Bequest, by Thomas Chastain

Perry Mason receives a call from a young woman. Her stepmother was found stabbed to death inside her house. The police find a pair of garden shears in the step mom's back. One glove is found outside, its mate is missing. Anne Kimbro's fiancee found the body, and becomes the chief suspect. Anne's step mom objected strongly to her romance with John Leland, due to their parent's relationship. The police are looking for physical evidence, like DNA on John's shirt and handkerchief, to arrest John. We learn that John's father had killed Anne's mother decades earlier. Both families owned stock in a very successful drug company. John's father disappeared after this killing and has never been found! John received a telephone call to his realtor's office, went to this house, met Anne, and they fell in love. But nobody knows who made this call!

After the missing bloodstained glove is found hidden away, the police arrest John Leland for the murder. Somebody then sets Anne's house on fire and it burns to the ground, destroying any overlooked evidence. Chapter 17 of this 1991 book explains the new science of DNA testing, which can uniquely identify a person from a bloodstain. Some of the blood found on the victim's body came from John Leland. Then there is videotaped testimony of Benjamin Jantzen, too ill to personally appear in court. The preliminary hearing is interrupted by the news of what was found at the burned down house. Then Anne's stepfather is found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage by John Leland! Chapter 20 has the solution to Anne's mother's murder; it was not John's father. [I found the hints to the real killer.] In Chapter 21 Mason asks the DNA expert if the glove without bloodstains had been tested for DNA; it wasn't [no limb hair?]. Mason wins an acquittal by a hair in Chapter 22. The videotaped confession of the real killer leads to John Leland's acquittal. Mason wonders about the many spectators who congratulate John in Chapter 23. What were their personal motives? [This story echoes the "Drowning Duck".]


[Part of this plot echoes the "Drowning Duck" story.]

The book was available at a reasonable price. The postage and handling was typical of what other used book sellers charge.