The Case of the Singing Skirt (Perry Mason) by Erle Stanley Gardner

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

Ellen Robb doubles as the cigarette girl and chanteuse at The Big Barn, a cabaret and gambling joint that props up the sluggish economy of the burg of Rowena.  Ellen’s employer, George Anclitas, has the chief of police and city attorney in his pocket. Used to getting his own way, Anclitas recklessly cans Ellen when she refuses to help him fleece the sucker Halman Ellis, who has not only lost heavily at poker but has the hots for Ellen. Both his gambling losses ($10K in 1959 is $75K now) and his infatuation with the young beauty have enraged his wife.

When Ellen brings her wrongful termination complaint to lawyer Perry Mason, his secretary Della Street smells a rat. But Perry follows his instinct to help a client who’s not getting any breaks. Later Ellen brings a gun to Perry’s office. She claims that Anclitas had the gun planted in her luggage. Perry switches Ellen’s piece with one he has in his office safe, just in case muddying the waters for the authorities may turn out a useful thing to do. When Ellen is accused of the inevitable murder, Perry ends up defending her.

Author Erle Stanley Gardner always kept up on developments in the law though he spent large parts of his work day dictating his mysteries. For example, when the Miranda decision came down, he was quick to incorporate in his novels the changes it ushered in. This novel revolves around two surprising points of law, one of which I won’t get into as it’s a spoiler. But the other involves Mrs. Ellis’ rage over her husband’s gambling debts. Perry tells her about new application of California divorce law in that certain debts, such as gambling debts, are the separate property of the acquiring spouse, even though they are incurred during the marriage. Thus, in case of a divorce, the gambling debt is not a part of community property, but an obligation to be the separate debt of the gambling spouse. This piece of divorce law still stands in the Golden State.

Anyway, this is a solid investigation and courtroom mystery. “The Case of the Singing Skirt,” wrote well-respected critic  Anthony Boucher in The New York Times Book Review at the time, “is one of the most elaborate problems of Perry Mason’s career…This is as chastely classic a detective story as you’re apt to find in these degenerate days.”

Whose Garden Is It?  by Mary Ann Hoberman, Illustrated by Jane Dyer

Review by Issa S. (Issa-345)

Whose Garden Is It? is a children’s book officially tagged as for ages 4-8 but I found it more than appropriate for younger audiences.

In summary, Mrs. McGee is pushing her son/grandson on a walk and comes across one of the most beautiful gardens she has ever seen.  Curious, she wants to find out whose garden is it.  The question brings out a menagerie of answers from everyone and everything you can think of who all believe the garden belongs to them.

The story is told in rhyme which was surprising since the book is fairly long.  The rhyme is fun to read and my toddler memorized her favorite line very quickly.

What I especially liked about the story was the introduction of animals not normally encountered in books such as voles, woodchucks, and wasps.  Most of the animals speak in first person so if you are the type that likes to use different voices when reading aloud this book is perfect for you.

The garden is explored from all angles, from the gardener who works it to the animals who eat it to the seeds that form it to the sun that feeds it.

All of these aspects make the story entertaining for kids and adults and put a different spin on the usual flowers in a garden story.  So many different ideas are covered which could make any follow up or later discussion possible for just about any age.

This book is a keeper for my little one.

The Catalyst Club by George Dyer

Review by Matt (BuffaloSavage)

In this curious American mystery released in 1936, six amateur detectives investigate the vicious killing of a young socialite. Author Dyer writes “Every city has strange little gatherings of men, pursuing curious ends in hidden corners of the sprawling chessboard of streets … San Francisco has her share of these associations, and none of them more extraordinary in its aims and achievements than the Catalyst Club.”

The six members bring different abilities in discussing the solutions to serious thefts and murders that puzzle the police. The police tolerate them because they avoid the public gaze and let the cops take all the credit.  They detest publicity because they fear that celebrity will prevent them from maintaining their essential property: “The club is a catalyst in crime, resolving criminal problems without itself being altered, just as a literal catalyst in chemistry.”

Dyer clearly differentiates the six characters.  Cyriak Brill-Jones, the Club’s official secretary, works at the aquarium and takes notes. Leonard Sloat, a retired criminal attorney, doesn’t like the club’s outside meeting place so he only rarely leaves his house. He keeps complex details straight for sake of club members and synthesizes previous information for us forgetful readers.

Persen “Buzz” Drake pounds the crime beat for a newspaper and acts as liaison between the club and the cops. Drake asserts truth is uncovered with old-fashioned police work and stool pigeons. Also chock full of street cred is Newton Bulger, a “rowdy, informally educated, ex-cowpuncher, ex-mechanic, with a genius for machinery … and an unequalled knowledge of the State of California.” He believes in employing horse-sense while evaluating crime-scene evidence.

Using the artistic insights of emotion, intuition, and sensation as well as the Greco-Roman classics is hard-headed Dr. Alexander MacCarden, a psychiatrist. Trusting the empiricism and the scientific method is Theodore Lempereur, a chemist who owns and operates a private lab.

The members bet that their path to truth is the one that will prevail as they probe the peculiar death of Brenda Chalis.  The mutilated body of the pretty co-ed is found nude on the grounds of her wealthy father’s estate. Her own pair of West Highland terriers – a notoriously active and barky breed – are the first suspects. So are boyfriends from Stanford and a cousin. To uncover truth through cooperation and conflict, they share insights and dispute each other’s hypotheses.

According to a critic in the 1930s, Dyer’s theory was that complex modern crimes, especially the convoluted kind that turned up in thirties’ detective novels, were too much for one brain to fathom, so instead of the usual single sleuth, he invented a group of six amateur detectives. In fact, in the book, Leonard Sloat paraphrases this idea. Like Earl Derr Biggers, the creator of Charlie Chan, Dyer describes landscape and interiors with a fine eye for detail. Similarly to John P. Marquand, famous for the Mr. Moto novels, Dyer writes highly literate prose and is powerful and convincing with motivation and emotion. Like both Marquand and Biggers, he has a low-key sense of humor and his stories move steadily if not briskly in some spots where the only action is talking in an office.

Early in his career, Dyer (born in 1903) was a journalist and put in a brief stint reporting for the San Francisco Examiner. It was during the 1930s when he wrote his mysteries.  His novel The Five Fragments was made into films, albeit with significant changes: Fog Over Frisco (1934), starring Bette Davis, and a war movie, Spy Ship in 1942. During WWII, he served as Lt. Col. in U. S. Army Intelligence.  After the war, he founded the Dyer Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, which was located on his Bucks County, PA  farm. He taught subjects in military history and intelligence with his wife Dr. Charlotte Leavitt Dyer, also an expert on U. S. and foreign intelligence. One wonders if their students worked for an organization whose budget we are not given to know. When he passed away due to a heart attack in 1978, he was so prominent that the New York Times ran his obituary.

Bibliography

The Three-Cornered Wound (1931)

The Five Fragments (1932)

A Storm Is Rising (1934)

The Catalyst Club (1936)

The Long Death (1937)

Adriana (1939) aka The Mystery of Martha’s Vineyard

The People Ask Death (1940)

Rescue Me by Rachel Gibson

Review by Cynthia F. (frazerc)

It’s a fun, fast read set in small-town Texas.  Lovett is one of those towns full of ‘Thou Shalts’, ‘Thou Shall Nots’, and “Everybody Knows Thats’ and Sadie left it years ago in a cloud of dust, with a final wave and no regrets.  Now she’s coming back, briefly, making a command appearance as a bridesmaid for a cousin she doesn’t even know.  It’s just a temporary blip in her life, not like she was planning to stay. But still, being back in the town which expected a princess and got her instead, dressed in a bubble gum pink bridesmaid dress that might have appealed to a teenager, and trying to deal with a father who had always talked more to his horses than to her?  Not so easy, especially since she was the ultimate failure in Lovett’s eyes; a thirty-three year old husbandless, childless woman with no date for the wedding.  Is it any wonder she has issues?

Enter Vince, a retired Navy SEAL with his own set of issues.  Like the resentment of having to retire due to hearing loss acquired during the engagement which killed his best friend. Like refusal to admit his PTSD issues. Like aimlessness about what to do now.  Like refusal to commit to anyone and anything…

They meet over his dead truck on the highway as she’s heading into town.  She gives him a ride, as he slides out he says ‘If there’s anything I can do for you…”  She asks him to be her date, he turns her down and they go their separate ways.  Yeah, like that’s going to happen.  Seems he’s in town to visit his aunt who wants to sell him her business.  And that ‘blip’ in Sadie’s life?  Sidelined when her father gets smashed up by a horse and she puts her life on hold to oversee his care and be there if he needs her.

Over time Vince and Sadie develop from casual meetings to friendship and their chemistry was hot from the start.  There are the usual romantic pitfalls, clever dialog and hurt feelings as they move from strangers, to uncommitted bed buddies, to a Relationship [yeah, that’s with a capital R] and finally the dreaded ‘C’ word, Commitment…

It’s a entertaining read.  It does a good job of being a stand-alone read even though it is part of the Lovett series so order is not important.  There are a couple of hanky moments but they don’t overshadow the happily-ever-after.

Lovett, Texas series

#1        Daisy’s Back In Town

#2        Crazy On You (only released in ebook form)

#3        Rescue Me

Gilt by Katherine Longshore

Review by Kelsey O.

I have to say I was pretty excited to start reading a book about Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife. I’ve read a lot about many of the others but I haven’t found a good historical fiction about Catherine yet. After reading Gilt, I am still looking for a good one. I am not saying that Longshore’s juvenile historical fiction was bad, just wasn’t over the top wonderful.

Gilt is told from the POV of Catherine Howard’s closest confidant, Katherine “Kitty” Tylney. Kitty and Cat grew up together and their characters really offset each other. Cat is selfish and very manipulative and Kitty is basically a doormat. She is very passive and her unwavering devotion to Cat becomes almost unbearable to read at times. After Cat marries Henry we see even more of that manipulative behavior from Cat as she tries to stay in the good graces of Henry (and we all know how hard that is). Kitty strives to be more but whenever it seems that Kitty is about to strike out on her own, Cat pulls her back into the games of the Court.

Kitty also has a couple of prospective love interests. William, who she holds near and dear, and Edmund, who is everything that she has always desired. I wouldn’t call it a love triangle in the true sense that we have come to know them but both men enter and leave her life at different times fulfilling that specific need that Kitty has at the moment. The two really couldn’t be more different. William wants nothing to do with Court and since Kitty will always be devoted to Cat; her place is at Court at Cat’s side. Edmund lives and breathes the games and fun that Court has to offer him.

Gilt, I felt, was thoughtfully researched but has a very modern dialect that will resonate with the juvenile reader (to whom the book is marketed) and hopefully will encourage them to continue reading historical fiction in the future. The characters could have been fleshed out a bit more but all in all, a satisfactory read for me.

A Blood Seduction (Vamp City, Bk 1) by Pamela Palmer

Review by Kelsey O.

Quinn Lennox has no idea why her unusual ability, after being dormant for quite some time, has now become unmanageable. She has started to notice pockets that are forming in the universe and that there is something strange when you look into them. While hunting for her brother’s love interest they stumble thru one of these pockets and Quinn’s life is about to take on a whole new meaning.

Quinn and her brother become separated in Vamp City. Vamp City is an alternate world where vamps rule and humans are just food and slaves. Quinn is lucky enough to land in the hands of the dangerous and sexy Arturo Mazza who the reader will love to hate. Their chemistry can practically be tasted and the reader craves more.

In Quinn’s favor, her unusual talent has landed her in the role of a sorceress who has been foretold to be the savior of Vamp City but first she must survive Arturo’s master’s treacherous games. Knowing she must escape she must find her brother before he is placed in the gladiator games and to do this she must also play Arturo’s games. Oh yes, these vamps do love their games.

Action-packed and steamy this vampire horror will have you longing the next installment. You will be shocked at the devious nature of these vamps because there is no holding back when the world is a demented vampires’ play land. I personally loved that these vampires were bad to the bone yet you know that something is simmering underneath Arturo’s tough facade. Definitely catered for adult readers only.

More about the author: When Pamela Palmer‘s initial career goal of captaining starships didn’t pan out, she turned to engineering, satisfying her desire for adventure with books and daydreams, until finally succumbing to the need to create worlds of her own.

This book is due to be published on May 29, 2012 .