The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister by Erle Stanley Gardner 4

 

"Sylvia Atwood sat in the client's chair in Mason's office. Her [green] eyes were fixed steadily on the lawyer now. There were no more flickering glances. She was regarding him as cautiously as a poker player appraises someone who just shoved a stack of blue chips into the pot."          -from the novel

I do like a good murder mystery, and I enjoyed the television series "Perry Mason" years ago, so I thought I'd give this novel a try. I didn't love it at first, but when the trial began, I could hardly put it down.

At start, a woman named Sylvia Atwood came to Perry Mason, attorney-at-law about an attempt to blackmail her father and ruin the family reputation. The perpetrator was J.J. Fritch, a known bank robber. There was a tape recording held by Fritch that would presumably implicate Sylvia's father in an illegal act. A private investigator named Brogan had offered to broker the deal for Ms. Atwood, so she sought legal advice from Mason.

When Fritch was found murdered, the race was on to find the killer, especially urgent when it looked like Sergeant Holcomb (not a nice guy) was suspicious of Mason. Eventually an unlikely suspect was put on trial, and it fell to Mason to defend the accused and reveal the real murderer.

I have rated this one a 4.