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The case of the careless kitten

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D.A. Hamilton Burger is out for blood this time. While investigating the return of a man missing for ten years, Mason sends Della Street out to interview the man before the police get there. What happens? When the man can't be found by the police, Della is charged with spiriting away a material witness. Burger plans to convict her, then try Mason as an accessory, convict him, then institute disbarrment proceedings against him. This will end Mason's career of legal dramatics and "outwitting the police".

Mason doesn't care anything about a murdered man, a wounded man, or the missing man who is the prime suspect - all he cares about is aquitting Della Street. And since Burger made it personal, Mason refuses to give the true solution to him during or after the trial. After all, if he did so, he'd be "outwitting the police" once again...

It is an interesting case, where Perry Mason defends his secretary, charged with hiding a material witness. As usual, the plot is well developed and the court room drama is highly interesting. A very good novel.

Perry mason is in the middle of a plot that is so skillfully planned that even he is baffled. The only clue that helps him solve is a careless kitten. What did the kitten do to help mason solve a case where every suspect seems to have an air tight alibi! The desire to find out what happens next kept me turning pages. So, watch out for the answers & learn a little bit of cat psychology!

This convoluted murder mystery is weakened by the common flaw in so many of the books by Gardner, the police and other officials are incompetent or weak personalities. In this case it is more pronounced than others because district attorney Hamilton Burger is so out to get Perry Mason that he brings Della Street up on criminal charges. Given the successful history of Mason and Street, it should be clear to everyone that Della would always be operating along the instructions given by Mason. The case goes to trial and as expected, Mason makes legal mincemeat of Burger. Lieutenant Tragg is a little better, he occasionally shows some sense but his aggressive nature when he visits Della at her apartment is not the attitude that a police officer would take that has been regularly defeated by Mason.

Through it all there is a convoluted murder plot, ten years ago banker Franklin Shore disappeared with almost no trace and suddenly he has apparently made contact again. The person claiming to be Franklin Shore asks that Mason be brought to a meeting, but at the designated time and place of the meeting, a man is found shot to death. This begins the process of Mason, the police and some of Shore's family members all involved in a complex web of intrigue, deception and further murders. There is no dramatic courtroom scene; the book concludes with Mason telling Della in a bit of a condescending manner how everything happened and who the guilty parties are.

Talented, capable adversaries are what make heroes great and the problem with so many of the Perry Mason stories is that his adversaries are often the police and Hamilton Burger, who regularly acts like a dunce. That is the case here; putting Della Street on trial trying to get at Mason is too childish even for an incompetent such as Burger.

In 1942 California Helen Kendal receives a phone call. The strange voice identifies himself as her long-lost Uncle Franklin Shore, and tells her secrets to verify his identity. Helen is to contact Perry Mason, bring him to a hotel, and ask for Henry Leech. Helen lives with her Aunt Matilda Shore, whose husband ran off ten years earlier. But her kitten takes sick, and is rushed to the vet (a mysterious poisoning). Later she meets Perry Mason and goes to the hotel. A message redirects them to a place in the hills; when they arrive there they find a dead body in an automobile, and call the police. It is not the uncle; his death would leave a large sum to Helen. Helen returns home alone, as her aunt was taken to the hospital. When she and her boyfriend hear a noise, they investigate. Shots ring out, and her boyfriend is hit. Perry is notified.

When Perry and Della visit the Shore residence, Perry is taken inside where the police ask him to produce the long missing Franklin B. Shore. Della finds Tom Lunk, the gardener, and drives away with him. Lunk tells Perry that Franklin visited his home earlier to spend the night. But they find Franklin has disappeared again. Perry wants Lunk to hide in a hotel, and Della takes him there. But the police find out, and arrest Della for hiding Franklin! Della escapes conviction for hiding Franklin, a material witness, because of the actions of the kitten at Lunk's shack! Lunk can't appear again as a witness because he is killed in a hit-and-run accident. But this results in solving the three murders. The clue again is eye-witness testimony that can't be corroborated. This story shows the variety of events and surprises that will mark future novels.

There is one warning in Chapter 20. Prosecutors have campaigned to sweep away constitutional guarantees, supposedly to fight professional criminals. But the end result was to stack the cards against ordinary citizens because the whole legal procedure has been completely undermined. Can you trust government to see that no known innocent person is ever prosecuted? The prosecution of Della Street provides an answer. Della will be found guilty unless she can prove her innocence! [Was this a veiled criticism of witch hunts?]