When all else fails, a Perry Mason novel is always reliable. Erle Stanley Gardner was an old pulp man who knew his craft and understood what the reader wanted. The Case of the Lonely Heiress delivers the goods, complete with a nude female corpse for cover art opportunities.

Perry Mason’s new client is the proprietor of a sleazy lonely hearts magazine, which thrives on ads (some of them even legitimate) from people looking for romance (that’s what they used to do before Tinder).

The man tells them that one of his recent ads has been getting a lot of response. The woman who bought the ad claims to be an heiress, and is looking for a young man who comes from the farm. He wants to find this woman, who is obviously a fraud. Perry agrees to put his detective Paul Drake on the case, and soon the woman is located.

Oddly enough, she turns out to be completely legitimate. And before long Perry’s working for her, and then things get complicated, and then somebody gets killed.

And it all comes down to a neat criminal plot, unraveled in the nick of time in the classic Perry Mason style.

Those of us who know Perry Mason mostly from TV don’t really know the early Mason. That Perry Mason was forever young, while actor Raymond Burr aged (and put on weight). He lacked the judge-like gravity of Burr’s interpretation. He was light-hearted, physically active, and not always strictly ethical. In this story (published in 1948) he sails pretty close to the wind in terms of his handling of evidence.

Good entertainment, The Case of the Lonely Heiress is an amusing book for occupying your time while waiting in a train station.