The Case of the Reluctant Model by Erle Stanley Gardner
Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)
Millionaire collector of pictures Otto Olney wants to sue art maven Colin Durant for slander, claiming that Durant is saying that a painting purchased by Olney is a fake.
Lawyer-series hero Perry Mason discourages the slander suit but provides his usual sage legal advice. He later realizes that Durant might be plotting an intricate scam with the coerced help of model Maxine Lindsay. Maxine ends up in trouble deep after Mason and Della Street find a body in her apartment and Maxine seeming to take flight. DA Burger and Homicide Detective Lt. Tragg are not amused.
I liked this one because it did not follow the lockstep stages of a typical Mason novel. Also, I clearly shouldn’t read these because Gardner’s antique Americanisms – “no doubt of it on earth” or “take a powder” or “as dead as a mackerel” – seep into my vocabulary and make middle-aged women at work say to me, “You sound like my dad.”
I was the same way when read Those books! Found a lot of the hard cover Perry Mason books when I was
13 and my family rented a cottage on a lake in Maine for 2 weeks. I still remember the musty smell of the cottage and the lumpy feel of the couch when I was reading those books. My family got tired of me saying” Holy Mackerel!😁