The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

by Erle Stanley Gardner

Paperback, 1946

Status

Available

Call number

813.52

Collection

Publication

New York: Pocket, 1952

Description

When Perry Mason stumbles upon a classified ad for a brown-haired woman with specific physical attributes, he takes note of the seemingly suspicious request. Then the woman hired for the job reaches out, fearing that her new employer--who pays her and her chaperone to stay inside an apartment and answer to another woman's name--might be using her for nefarious purposes. But by the time Mason works out the first mystery, a second, with murder, is just getting started, and that's only the first twist that awaits him as he endeavors to prove the innovence of "the borrowed brunette." -- book jacket

User reviews

LibraryThing member antiquary
Some Gardner stories become formulaic, but this is more original --it starts with an intriguing opening -- Mason passes a whole series of attractive, similarly dressed brunette each standing on a separate street corner. Naturally, he stops and asks one what it is all about....
LibraryThing member AliceAnna
Great set-up ... Overall pretty good, but not one of the best.
LibraryThing member bekkil1977
"Borrowed Brunette" had the craziest premise in the world, but was one of the more understandable and easy to follow Mason mysteries I've read so far. A woman looking to divorce her wealthy husband so she can marry another man learns her husband has hired detectives to shadow her to learn the
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identity of her boyfriend, so she has a friend hire a girl who looks like her to live in her apartment to throw the detectives off track. All is going splendidly until the friend turns up dead in the apartment, and the woman hired to impersonate her, along with her chaperone, are charged with the crime. The D.A. tries to get Perry in trouble with the Grand Jury for perjury, but of course the Grand Jury is to smart for that! Silly D.A., thinking he could get Perry in trouble! In the end it was actually a very logical suspect who was guilty: the woman's husband, who thought that the friend was actually the boyfriend.
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LibraryThing member BooksForDinner
Classic hard boiled Perry Mason loveliness

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1946

Physical description

217 p.; 17 cm

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