The Case of the Terrified Typist (Perry Mason, #49) by Erle Stanley Gardner

The Case of the Terrified Typist (Perry Mason, #49) Reviews

• 
  Aby

  رواية لطيفة، و أحداثها سلسلة و سريعة، و اللغز مختلف، أعتقد أنها أول قراءاتي لإيرل ستانلي جاردنر، و لن تكون الأخيرة.
• 
  Bailey Marissa

  This was fun as it had more anticipation than the tv adaption.
  
  Recommended 14+ for language, theft, and mentions of an affair.
• 
  Alan Tomkins-Raney

  Written in 1955, this was one of the better Perry Mason novels in the series. Pretty clever, and very fast paced.
• 
  Lyn

  More and more I find myself reading vintage murder mysteries. I'm tired of magical cats, dogs who can outsmart their owners, women who've been divorced or lost a spouse or were jilted and having to move back to their hometown, baking or crafty sleuths, witches that are sleuths or houses that are haunted and have helpful ghosts or nasty murdering ghosts. I've been reading a lot of Charlotte McLeod(Peter Shandy Mysteries, etc), Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe), and Perry Mason or I mean Erle Stanley Gardner. None of their stories are like any other story. This the case of the Terrified Typist is fast-paced, unpredictable, novel, and thoroughly enjoyable. As an author, I understand that certain what they call tropes are popular in different genres. In romance, it's mail order brides, marriage of convenience, Regency romances, etc. But I just think that we need some new voices in mystery who defy the tropes and create new ones. Diane Mott Davidson and Joanne Fluke pioneered new tropes. It can be done!!!
• 
  Stven

  I was on page 26 when I realized that I remembered the ending of this one!.... and that it hadn't been one of the better books in the series. I decided to keep reading and found it entertaining anyhow. Gardner sets up his gimmick nicely by starting his story with a little situation where Perry has Della call "the agency" to send over a typist and they make some unwarranted assumptions about the woman who shows up -- who turns out to be, among other things, a terrific typist.
• 
  Betsy

  I have seen all the Perry Mason television episodes many times, and this is a favorite so I decided to read the original novel for comparison. Frankly, I prefer the television version. They are somewhat alike in plot, and some of the characters are the same, but Gardner's writing acts almost like a law lesson discussing technicalities and terms. Maybe it was thought necessary when it came out in 1956. It's a confusing story just as the TV version is, but the television mystery moves along at a brisker pace. After all, they only had an hour to work with.
• 
  shravya

  well, shit, was NOT expecting that ending
• 
  Dennis

  Early on in this book, I thought it didn't seem very interesting...maybe it was too dated. But then I got into it and bam! Erle Stanley Gardner really knew how to write a good legal mystery. It still will seem dated...well it was written several decades ago. But it's a good quick read and does hold your interest well. It's not a Grisham thriller. But both writers have done great work making legal mysteries or legal thrillers fun to read.
  This one has made me interested in starting up the whole Perry Mason series, esp as I watched these as a kid and have gone back through the entire TV series again as an adult. The original series, that is. I haven't see the new HBO series. But the original series seems to have stayed quite true to the novels, at least this one.
• 
  Glenn

  On Twitter a very distinguished writer asked me HOW I could read these books and I think I understand why. But ultimately that answer is "easy." As basic as the writing it, the milieu, which is absolutely tied up with a notion of American exceptionalism, is fascinating, the plots are knotty, the legalese is something new for me and it's all pretty engaging in a superficial way, which is sometimes what you want.
• 
  Asra Ghouse

  There were two reasons why I badly wanted to read this book. Back in 2001, I was on this mission to complete the entire collection of Perry Mason series. This happened to be the only book that I couldn't get my hands on. Another reason being the result of a quiz I had taken on Perry Mason which said this case was... er... the most difficult of Perry's caes. They said this is the only case he'd lost!
  
  Finally, in 2003 I got my hands on this book. To be honest, I wasn't the least bit disappointed by it. The contents were gripping. The mystery interesting. The characters albeit cliched, had their own individual idiosyncrasies to be appreciated and depreciated.
  
  It being a mystery story, I wouldn't get into the contents of the book in this review. However, I will say: Watch out for Perry! :D
  
  And I most certainly do NOT believe that he lost the case!Period.
• 
  Kathy

  I really loved the Perry Mason TV show when I was younger, so I was eager to read this novel. I've not read any Erle Stanley Gardner before. I'm afraid this novel was quite a disappointment. The characters were completely flat; the mystery was not engaging; the legal exposition was uninteresting.
• 
  Kay Hudson

  I read all the Perry Mason novels when I was a kid, as well as others by Erle Stanley Gardner (he wrote at least one other series as A.A. Fair), but it’s been a few decades. When HBO’s weird prequel show apparently raised interest in old (or should I say young) Perry, I downloaded The Case of the Terrified Typist (more or less at random, when it was on sale). No doubt I read it when it was new (circa 1955, so perhaps a few years later), and I’ve seen the Raymond Burr TV show version fairly recently, so I knew where it was going.
  
  Did I enjoy it? Sure. It’s a short novel, but it still added something to the TV version. The puzzle was entertaining. The characters, on the other hand, were pretty flat, and the writing was 1950s pulp. Will I be watching the ebook sales lists for more? No. I have far more books than I should in my Kindle cloud already, don’t to mention my bookshelves. A nice little visit to the past, but that’s all.
• 
  Scilla

  Perry Mason asks his secretary Della Street, to hire a temporary typist. When a woman enters the office, she is asked if she is from the temp agency, and says she is. Although she seems nervous, she is an excellent typist, and is very fast with no errors. When she suddenly disappears, they wonder what happened. Leaving the office, they find that someone has broken into a jewelry office, and they realize it might have been the typist. When they find some diamonds stuck into a wad of gum on the underside of the desk she was using, they realize she was involved.
  
  Then they find that the man who smuggled the diamonds has disappeared, and one of the jewel employees is charged with the murder of the man. Perry is asked to defend him. As the trial starts, Perry realizes the DA is out to make a fool of him, as several of the witnesses are lying. The plot is very complicated, but the story is a good yarn.
• 
  Christopher Taylor

  Perry Mason loses a case! Sort of.
  
  This was a more complicated story than usual for Mason, but not as good one. The premise is sort of interesting: Perry hires a typist who turns out to be extraordinarily good, but then it turns out she didn't come from the agency they usually work with. The typist vanishes in the middle of a project, and leaves behind a wad of gum embedded with diamonds under the desk she was working at!
  
  This book felt padded, as if Gardner knew he didn't have enough to fill out a book and jammed it with extraordinarily slow and trivial details on cameras and legal minutae. Paul Drake skips some extremely obvious and typical detective work for no reason except that way the information he was seeking won't be found until later in the book. Several characters act in very bizarre ways for no apparent reason. Its just not one of Gardner's best efforts.
• 
  Kate Picher

  Although I figured out how this story would end about half way through, kept reading for the Erle Stanley Gardner gems.
  
  "Suppose you slip down to the powder room, Della, and see if perhaps our demon typist has a little flask in her purse and is now engaged in chewing on a clove."
  "Also," Della Street said. "I'll take a whiff to see if I smell marijuana smoke."
  
  Mason and Paul Drake speak of women so derogatively, it's a wonder Della isn't posting to the #metoo hashtag.
  
  At any rate, the case took a wild turn and I am still waiting for the body to turn up.
• 
  Deane

  I really enjoyed this book .... a good mystery involving smuggling of diamonds from Europe to the USA.
  
  The plot was easy to follow and I learned from a previous story by Gardner to take small notes on each new character to keep them straight.
  
  The ending was great....so different from what I thought it would be. I certainly would never want to be questioned by Perry Mason in a court room....he is ruthless!
  
  The stories I am reading are from a hard-covered book containing 7 Perry Mason stories so the photo with my review is not actually the one I read.
• 
  Kieran McAndrew

  A case of mistaken identity leads Perry Mason into a cunning jewel theft from an office down the hall from his own. Hired to represent a murderer, Duane Jefferson, Mason must use all his detective skills to solve the crime, before an innocent man is convicted.
  
  Gardner weaves an intricate mystery, which leaves readers both dumbfounded and impressed in equal measure at the resources of the great Perry Mason.
• 
  Jon

  "Then came the pay-off. As the ship was off Gibraltar a helicopter hovered overhead. A man descended a rope ladder, dangled precariously from the last rung. The helicopter hovered over the deck of the ship, and Munroe Baxter dropped to the deck by the swimming pool, where Yvonne Manco was disporting herself in the sunlight in a seductive bathing suit."
  "Romantic," Mason said.
  "And opportune," Irving said dryly.
• 
  Janine

  Reading a Perry Mason mystery is like taking a step into a “twilight zone” of time that you can’t believe actually existed - it did; I lived through it. We are treated in this book to the time of typewriters. I’m old enough to have used typewriters (still have my Smith Corona from college) so I can appreciate how the woman’s typing skills who starts the mystery rolling is so valued by Perry and Della. This book is more about a court trial and Perry’s verbal sparring with rival, Hamilton Burger because the twist at the end is predicated on certain legalities. Quick but interesting read.
• 
  Jeff

  The Case Of The Terrified Typist (1954) I wonder, as I read Perry Mason, how much of his frenetic pacing is related to his writing which is almost entirely dialogue. I remember, along the way, one of the Perry Masons being advertised as “the one he loses.” I expect there’s a couple that vqguely qualify in one way or another, and this may be one of them. The dialogue engages, as does his command of the legal profession.
• 
  Mark

  More complex than the TV version of the story. A novel of its time, but it moves and is not full of violence, gore and non-plot related sex. The back and forth conversations and the legal insights are what make a Perry Mason an enjoyable read. Perry Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake and all the other characters come out fully formed from the first book in the series. The author does not age them. They pass through time and just continue doing their thing.
• 
  Len Knighton

  One of my favorite cases on the series starring Raymond Burr, the novel is a bit different from the program, although the case is resolved in the same way. There is little interaction between Mason and the defendant; most of the book is of the trial or conversation between Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake. Even knowing the outcome before reading the book, the author kept me guessing.
  
  Four stars waxing
• 
  Pat

  I’ve always liked the Perry Mason TV show
  
  And I liked this and other of his books I’ve read. I just realized, of all the mystery books I own or have read I don’t think there is another one that has a lawyer for the protagonist. Anyway I like the clear thinking involved. The careful language used.
• 
  Chris Houghton

  Well, I like Perry Mason, so I give it good reviews. The novels just flow along. Sometimes you think you see what's coming and other times a plot twist fools you..
  This particular case reminded me of one I saw on TV decades ago with much the same outcome. I need to go back and find that episode to see if it is, in fact, the same case, or just the same solution.