But who just so happens to turn up to have some papers signed? Perry Mason of course and after a short coaching session during a break on cross examining, Neely successfully gets his client acquitted. She is being defended by a young and inexperienced lawyer named Frank Neely and her prospects look bleak as Neely is unable to shake Bole’s testimony. Yet even to the judge trying the case something feels wrong. Later on police, after Bole informs on Bagby, find some of the missing jewellery in her own luggage. This marriage of course was halted when the theft was discovered and has been indefinitely postponed due to Chaney’s second husband causing a fuss. It seems like an open and shut case, as the witness, Harry Bole, positively identifies her as being near Irene Keith’s car and opening Irene’s suitcase, which contained her own jewellery and that of her friend, actress Helene Chaney, who was shortly to marry her third husband, Mervyn Aldrich. The Case of the Restless Red Head (1954) opens with Evelyn Bagby, a waitress, who is being tried for theft. Trying to understand why I don’t enjoy Gardner as much as some other writers is one thing I hoped to figure out by giving his work another go and over the coming weeks a couple more titles by Gardner may be popping up in my reviews. I wonder whether it is because the social milieu of the novels and the fact it is an American legal crime novel interest me less than other sectors of crime fiction. I occasionally wonder why I haven’t tried him so much. This is only the second novel by Gardner I have read, which may surprise some readers. Vintage Mystery Scavenger Hunt Item: Unsurprisingly it is a red head

The case of the restless redhead book