Review of "The Case of the Fugitive Nurse," by Erle Stanley Gardner

 Review of

The Case of the Fugitive Nurse, by Erle Stanley Gardner

Four out of five stars

Follows the formula, yet unique

 The Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner follow a basic formula. An unusual client comes in and presents a case that is clearly not what they claim. Intrigued, Mason agrees to take the case and suddenly unusual twists pop out everywhere. Mason is suddenly in a bind with the law and his old foe Hamilton Burger is out to even the score, willing to stretch the prosecutorial bounds if necessary. The case then reaches the point where there is apparently an impossible dead end. However, as only Gardner can, he has Mason dig out the truth and the guilty parties are all identified.

 In this case, the client is the wife of a very successful physician that has supposedly recently died in a plane crash. She suspects her husband of siphoning off revenues from his practice and the IRS also has their suspicions. She hires Mason to find what she thinks is $100,000 in missing money.

 Yet, almost immediately, it is clear that the client has set Mason up. There is an opened and empty safe, the head nurse for the doctor that is also the keeper of the books is also missing and a mysterious best friend of the doctor of unknown whereabouts.

 The only flaw in the plot is that the police and the prosecutor act like fools, never even trying to determine if the corpse in the plane is in fact the missing doctor. One of the key witnesses vanishes from under the supervision of the police and through it all Mason’s arch-foe Hamilton Burger fumes and arrogantly postures.

 It is a good story, one that keeps you gripped through the last pages as the scenario has been laid for what is the climactic courtroom scene where Mason lays it all down in logical sequence.