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3.5 

The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe: A Perry Mason Mystery (An American Mystery Classic)

By Erle Stanley Gardner & Otto Penzler
The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe: A Perry Mason Mystery (An American Mystery Classic) by Erle Stanley Gardner & Otto Penzler digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

After a thieving woman is accused of murder, it’s up to Perry Mason to prove her innocent

Sleuthing attorney Perry Mason can’t resist a good mystery, so when he sees an older woman being accused of shoplifting during a department store outing with his assistant, Della Street, he doesn’t hesitate to intervene. Armed with an assumption of innocence and the legal acumen to silence her accuser, Mason leaps to the woman’s defense—until her niece appears, acknowledging her aunt’s guilt, and pays for the stolen items.

Soon thereafter, Aunt Sarah is accused of stealing a valuable set of diamonds, and her niece, Virginia, enlists Mason’s aid. The man who left the jewels in Sarah’s care insists that she didn’t take them, but when he turns up dead, she’s left with nobody to vouch for her. Nobody, that is, but Perry Mason—expert in the art of defending the innocent.

The thirteenth novel in the bestselling Perry Mason series, The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe is an exemplary episode for the character, featuring the complex plots, snappy dialogue, and break-neck pacing that make the novels perennial favorites of mystery fans everywhere.

Includes discussion guide questions for use in book clubs.

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26 Reviews

3.5
“3.5 stars. A lot of fun but also not entirely what I expected. I didn’t expect Perry Mason to be so flimsy with the law to get what he wanted. Still, fairly predictable, but infinitely readable.”
“One of many, many books by Gardner, this case follows Perry Mason as he tries tirelessly to help a woman prove her innocence. Written succinctly and with conviction, this book is engaging and easy to follow while still twisting your brain in trying to figure out the murder case. While some of the social norms may not have aged as well as others, this book does stand to be a timeless classic with the entertaining language of Perry Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake. It captures a certain eagerness and verocity in its characters that I'd say is somewhat jarring to regular fans of Raymond Burr's television show, but they are nonetheless fun people to read about. That being said, the end of the case was still something of an elusive spirit to me, keeping me confounded after I had put the book down. Perhaps that is as Gardner intended, so that his readers would pick it right back up again and join Perry on this case once more.”

About Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) was the best-selling American author of the 20th century, mainly due to the enormous success of his Perry Mason series, which numbered more than 80 novels and inspired a half-dozen motion pictures, radio programs, and a long-running television series that starred Raymond Burr. Having begun his career as a pulp writer, Gardner brought a hard-boiled style and sensibility to the early Mason books, but gradually developed into a more classic detective story novelist, showing enough clues to allow the astute reader to solve the mystery. For more than a quarter of a century he wrote more than a million words a year under his own name and numerous pseudonyms, the most famous being A.A. Fair.

Otto Penzler

Otto Penzler, the creator of American Mystery Classics, is also the founder of The Mysterious Press (1975); MysteriousPress.com (2011), an electronic-book publishing company; and New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop (1979). He has won a Raven, the Ellery Queen Award, two Edgars (for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, 1977, and The Lineup, 2010), and lifetime achievement awards from NoirCon and The Strand Magazine. He has edited more than 70 anthologies and written extensively about mystery fiction.

Other books by Otto Penzler

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