The Case of the Screaming Woman by Earle Stanley Gardner
Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)
Super-lawyer Perry Mason acquires a client because the client’s wife doesn’t believe for a minute her husband’s tale about picking up a stranded woman in the middle of the night and dropping her off at the Beauty Rest Motel after registering as husband and wife. She asks Perry Mason to cross-examine the hubby in order to prove his tale is full of holes.
The husband is a sales manager and trainer who has excessive confidence in his ability to overcome sales resistance and make people believe anything he wants them to. During the interrogation, Mason finds the client is so up to his keister in suspicious circumstances that his lame story won’t whitewash.
Soon enough the relentless tentacles of the police tighten and Mason finds himself in legal quicksand. Though he protests in legal mires he prefers to be, even his loyal confidential secretary Della Street wonders aloud if he can avoid being disbarred.
Follow Mason as he blazes a trail to uncover black market adoptions, abused narcotics and blackmail until he plays one last gambit in the climactic court-room scene.
