Sat 23 May 2026
Diary Review: ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Worried Waitress.
Posted by Steve under Uncategorized[2] Comments
ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Worried Waitress. Perry Mason #77. William Morrow, hardcover, 1966. Pocket, paperback, 1967. Reprinted many other times.
A waitress who wants to ask Perry Mason for advice in a restaurant is invited to come to his office, Her story concerns her aunt’s financial problems and the discovery of several thousand dollars hidden in her closet. Mason advises the waitress to move out of her aunt’s house, but it is too late. The aunt is attacked, and the girl is accused.
A trial is inevitable (in this case a hearing), and it brings to light an impersonation of a blind woman, a struggle for control of a manufacturing corporation, plus a fight for community property.
Dialogue carries too much of the action and the story. People don’t really talk this way, except on old radio programs.
Rating: ***
May 24th, 2026 at 9:40 am
Love Gardner’s books. They are the potato chips of my reading — I can’t stop with just one.
May 24th, 2026 at 12:02 pm
I’ve enjoyed Gardner’s work for as long as I can remember, even his earliest pulp stories when I could find them. And even knowing his flaws as a writer, if such exist. and which I concede they really do. I don’t think I could read too many in a row, unlike you, Jerry. but when I was younger, I’d have come close. At one time I’d have called him my favorite mystery writer.