Picked up another Perry Mason mystery by Erle Stanley Gardner. I enjoyed the first one I read. The Case of the Careless Kitten didn’t please me quite as much, but it offered some interesting looks at some of the characters.

Helen Kendal wants to marry a soldier (the book is set in 1942), but her guardian, her aunt, is opposed to the match. If the aunt’s husband, Helen’s uncle, who disappeared ten years ago, were declared legally dead, Helen would have money coming from his will, and would be able to afford marriage. But the aunt insists her husband is still alive.

Then one day, Helen’s pet kitten shows signs of poisoning. She rushes the animal to a veterinarian. But that same evening, the aunt suffers poisoning too, and has to go to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Helen has gotten a call from a man who identifies himself as her missing uncle. He wants her to hire the lawyer Perry Mason, and go with him to meet a man at a seedy hotel. That man will lead them to a meeting with the uncle. Thus the mystery begins.

If it all seems a little convoluted, I thought so too. This was a complicated story, and I found it a little work to keep up.

On the other hand, I was intrigued to see the Perry Mason characters in a pre-Raymond Burr light. I’ve often read that author Gardner rarely described his characters, but this book was richer in character description than most. And it contradicts the later TV portrayals. I wonder if Gardner didn’t make it a point to eliminate descriptions after the show started, in order to promote it.

Perry Mason was, we are informed here, a tall man. I don’t think Raymond Burr was notably tall. (I remember reading, in one short story, that Mason was slender-waisted. Definitely not true of Burr.) Mason and his secretary Della Street also seemed much more romantically involved here than they would on TV.

We’re told here that Hamilton Burr was a big, bullish man. Not much like William Talman.

Lieutenant Tragg, the police detective, was the greatest surprise. He’s a young man, we’re told here, and well-dressed. The TV casting people definitely went another way with Ray Collins.

I found the final solution of the book pretty complicated, and Mason’s choice for explaining it all a little disappointing. Nevertheless, The Case of the Careless Kitten was professionally written and highly readable.