Publisher's Weekly
Repeating his successful continuation of the work of the late Erle Stanley Gardner, MWA president Chastain invents a second mystery to challenge lawyer Perry Mason ( The Case of Too Many Murders ). John Leland is arrested for fatally stabbing Iris Jantzen, stepmother of his fiancee, Anne Kimbro, who engages Mason to save her beloved. With Della Street and Paul Drake, the attorney searches for facts to refute the mass of evidence against Leland. But information about an earlier murder in the same house where Iris was killed further incriminates the accused, who repeatedly disappears while shrewd Mason, preparing for the trial, looks elsewhere for a suspect. Will the great lawyer crush the opposition at the height of the courtroom proceedings? Of course. Chastain adheres to Gardner's successful formula in which the fun comes from guessing how--not if--Perry will win his daunting cases. Literary Guild alternate.