ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Careless Cupid. William Morrow, hardcover, 1968. Pocket, paperback, November 1969. Ballantine, paperback, 1989.

   Both author Erle Stanley Gardner and character Perry Mason are in fine form in this relatively late entry in the series. (Gardner died in 1970, but as I recall, there were several books written but as yet unpublished at the time of his passing.) It’s a slim book, only 181 pages in the Pocket edition, but there’s still plenty of space for all of the usual ingredients, including a trial in which Hamilton Burger is left dumbfounded (again) and Perry’s client is cleared (again!).

   This time around his client is a widow who would like to marry the man at whose home her husband unfortunately died of food poisoning, or so the death certificate says. There are members of the man’s family, however, who think their chances of receiving their full inheritance if the marriage goes through, and their suggestion that something was fishy about the death is starting to attract the attention of the authorities.

   One way Perry goes about protecting his client in this book is to have her undergo a lie detector test, which gives author Gardner a large opportunity to expound on what a polygraph can or cannot do, and why defense attorneys should use them more often. It helps, though, if the client is innocent. This one reads very quickly.