The Case of the Gilded Lily (The Perry Mason Mysteries Book 6) Kindle Edition

The client won't take advice. He was being blackmailed.But no more: the blackmailer is dead, found in a motel cabin the client rented, shot with a gun of the same caliber as the client's.And he just keeps pushing his desires onto Perry.Nonetheless, Perry hits pay dirt!

The Case of the Gilded Lily has some nice courtroom scenes. The battle with Hamilton Burger is heated and technical. There a lot of objections that are sustained and overruled. I liked the ending.

A businessman named Stewart G. Bedford is being blackmailed by a man named Binney Denham who comes to him with a proposition from his associate named Delbert: Delbert needs twenty thousand dollars to finance a venture of his. He’s promised to pay back the money within six months.But Bedford tells him he has no idea who Delbert is. Then Binney threatens him with his wife's criminal records. He knows little about His wife Ann Roann who’s much younger than he is beside the fact that she’s a victim of an unhappy marriage plus her husband’s suicide.Then Binney presents a mugshot of his wife and adds that she was arrested for insurance fraud. He then threatens to take the shot to a magazine that would be willing to pay just as much to dig up dirt on her. Binney demands traveler's checks which Bedford pays.At the motel where he does the exchange, Binney turns up dead and his female companion vanishes into thin air. Bedford has little collection of what took place because he was drugged. He shares his ordeal with his secretary Elsa Griffin who hires a famous trial lawyer named Perry Mason to look into the case.Perry Mason in turn enlists the help of a Paul Drake of the Drake Detective Agency. His secretary Della Street is also there to assist. A good read.

The scam made me so uncomfortable, that I almost abandoned the book. I hated to see that nice middle-aged businessman being blackmailed, bamboozled and framed for murder. But I’m glad I kept on reading, because Mason’s surreptitious investigations are inspired, he keeps one step ahead of the police — and the courtroom scenes are highly charged with tension and drama. The complex love and hate relationships among the characters add to the fun.I was ready to send the wrong person to the chair, so the plot was certainly clever.

I liked the legal info and the way it is wound into the story, and the way that character is appropriately vindicated.Stop

It's an old story. Rich older man marries younger woman and a blackmailer finds out some dirt on the woman, then wants money or the information will be turned over to the press. But in this case the blackmailer turns up dead and the victim is now accused. The mysteries in the story are masterly solved in this book. One of Gardner's best, and I've read most of them.

I rarely saw the TV series with Raymond Burr, having been a kid whose parents controlled the TV and didn’t watch the show. So comparison to the TV series is not my problem with the books. Nor are the dated lingo and attitudes. They are of their era. I just don’t like mysteries that won’t let me play the game along with the characters. Perry Mason is a pain in the cops’ butt and invariably pulls the solution out of his ear. Too much rabbit out of the hat. I’ve tried several books and just can’t see what the attraction is. Case closed.

You know you have a good Perry Mason mystery when he has dozens of Drake's operatives working around the clock, flying to Mexico, Della doing undercover work, and Ham Berger red-faced in the courtroom screaming about a flim-flam. Nice to see this one re-released.

This has many of the usual elements of a Perry Mason mystery. Here a wealthy businessman is blackmailed and becomes involved in a slightly convoluted murder.Perry defends his client in his own inimitable way and finds the truth, emerging unscathed, despite the efforts of the DA .There is a lot of fun with fingerprints and the usual quota of beautiful women and courtroom bickering.Easy reading to pass a few idle hours.3.25 stars.

I rate this is as one of the best Perry Mason stories. It's rather unusual in that Perry doesn't appear until a quarter of the way through the book, and the courtroom drama doesn't start until almost three quarters of the way through. But the plot draws you in, holds together well, and is clever without being over-complex.Erle Stanley Gardner wrote over eighty Perry Mason books, and I’ve read about three quarters of them. They are amongst my favourites when it comes to a bit of light, escapist reading. I have found that most are very good, a few are really excellent, and just a few are disappointing. If you are not already familiar with them, this one is certainly a good place to start. You might end up as addicted to them as I am!Critics have said – rightly, I suppose – that these books are not great literature. There is not much depth of characterisation; sometimes the plots have weaknesses or are too complex; and Gardner certainly does not waste any time on the sort of long, descriptive passages that you get in Raymond Chandler’s writing.But if you want briskly-paced page-turners, these are the books for you. They do not feature the grim blood, gore and “darkness” of so much modern crime fiction. Instead they grab our attention and give us enjoyment through Perry Mason’s quick-wittedness and the brilliant and fast-paced dialogues, especially the courtroom dialogues.Incidentally, although Chandler’s Philip Marlowe books are rated as better literature than the Perry Mason novels, I now prefer the latter. On recently re-reading Chandler’s stuff, I have found that the long descriptions and Marlowe’s constant smart-aleck comments can become rather tiresome. And despite the alleged lack of depth of characterisation in the Perry Mason stories, I feel that I “know” the central characters - Mason, Paul Drake, Della Street, Lieutenant Tragg and Hamilton Burger - well.By the way, Series One and Two (from the late 1950s) of the TV Perry Mason are available on DVD. They too make for a great bit of relaxing entertainment.Phil Webster.

Too convenient an end. All nicely tied up. But this is one of those books where Mason plays around with the evidence, luckily which turns out alright at the end.The only good part was the lovely court room argument back and forth, over technicalities.

Received in good condition

Good