Review of "Perry Mason: The Case of the Perjured Parrot," by Erle Stanley Gardner

 Review of

Perry Mason: The Case of the Perjured Parrot, by Erle Stanley Gardner

Four out of five stars

A bit of a break from the Mason formula

 The Perry Mason stories penned by Erle Stanley Gardner follow a basic formula with many of the same auxiliary characters to add the proper ambience. In this case, there is a bit of a modification of this formula. Seargent Holcomb is in his usual anti-Mason state of mind, despite the many cases behind them where Mason led the process of finding the real killer(s), Holcomb still makes it clear that he can’t stand Mason and will do all he can to pin him down in something he can be arrested for.

 However, in this story, there is the county Sheriff Barnes, a man that is smart enough to recognize Mason’s skills at deriving the truth in a sea of confusion has proven useful. Therefore, when wealthy Fremont Sabin is killed in a remote cabin and Mason appears at the murder scene, Barnes is willing to let Mason be part of the process.

 The parrot is one that talks, yet of course it can’t create its’ own dialog but only repeats what it hears. Mason is hired by Charles Sabin, the son of Fremont, with the goal being the determination of who committed the murder. There are many logical suspects, a divorce that may or not have been legal, apparent bigamy and a gross inconsistency in the evidence. Mason ends up also representing Helen Monteith, a library worker that is the most logical suspect. She is directly linked to the murder weapon, an old pistol that she removed from the library.

 As a Perry Mason story by Gardner, there are many distractors and pathways through the facts as Mason and Della Street plow through many “facts” that turn out to be less than as solid as they first appeared. Of course, it is Mason that finally puts it all together and determines what is the one big lie that directly leads to the identity of the killer.

 The apparent case of bigamy is resolved in a less than solid manner. It turns out that there was a very solid, albeit weak explanation. This is a good, but not great Perry Mason story. What makes it better than good is the presence of Sheriff Barnes, a man that is more concerned with identifying the guilty than with salving his ego for failing to win in a battle of wits with Mason.

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