The Case of the Runaway Corpse

Perry Mason #44

by Erle Stanley Gardner

Her husband was stealing her money, while accusing her of a plot to poison him -- or so claims the frightened young Mrs. Myrna Davenport. She wants Perry Mason to find the incriminating note her husband left for the authorities accusing her of murder -- especially now that Davenport is dying.

Perry finds the envelope, but it's filled with blank paper. Then Davenport does die, or so everyone thinks until his alleged corpse climbs out a window and drives away -- straight into a prepared open grave in another county.

With Davenport finally dead, Perry could become a possible accessory to murder. And though the victim died twice, Perry gets only one clear shot at saving his client -- and himself.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Classics, Detective, Audiobook, Ebooks

210 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 13, 1954

About the author

Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories who also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray, and Robert Parr.

Innovative and restless in his nature, he was bored by the routine of legal practice, the only part of which he enjoyed was trial work and the development of trial strategy. In his spare time, he began to write for pulp magazines, which also fostered the early careers of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. He created many different series characters for the pulps, including the ingenious Lester Leith, a "gentleman thief" in the tradition of Raffles, and Ken Corning, a crusading lawyer who was the archetype of his most successful creation, the fictional lawyer and crime-solver Perry Mason, about whom he wrote more than eighty novels. With the success of Perry Mason, he gradually reduced his contributions to the pulp magazines, eventually withdrawing from the medium entirely, except for non-fiction articles on travel, Western history, and forensic science.

See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erle_Sta...

Reviews

[Bill Riggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost had this one figured out except for a slight twist at the end. Thoroughly enjoyable with a deviously tangled plot.

[Melindam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. :)

[Richa · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a long time, a truly confusing mystery. I admit I Did Not see the end.. not even a vague idea about it. It hooked me proper. Worth a read.

[Jeff Dickison · Rating 3 out of 5]

A routine Perry Mason mystery. Man is traveling, gets sick, checks into motel, calls doctor, dies in front of doctor. Doctor locks room, calls police, no body in room. Man's wife is arrested for murder. Perry saves her behind. Recommended only to Perry Mason fans.

[Michael R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking for something to read instead of my usual diet of Agatha Christie novels and found two Perry Mason novels. This one with the title of Runaway Corpse pulled me in. How can a corpse run away? That's interesting.

And it is an interesting story. Of course this was not a zombie story, and a dead body did not sneak away - only to be found later... DEAD! (really dead this time!) in a pre-dug grave!

The only downside for me was, having watched Perry Mason for decades on TV, it was disappointing that while Perry and Della get into a lot of trouble with the local authorities, and Perry spars with a local DA... there is no actuals courtroom drama.

Still a great read!

[Rob Smith, Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Mason novel is steeped in the typical rushed antics as other Mason books as though Mason has no other case going on. One thing different are the couple dozen pages of legal back and forth. The first set is overly lengthy for reasons given in the book. But would have been best to edit a page or two. Editing that and needless repetition of many story points.

Otherwise this is a solid murder mystery that makes little sense until the end. Also included are solid characters. The settings are also very good as these are important to the story.

Again, I believe this would have been a better story trimming it ten pages or so. It's still a good book despite the excess.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 6 out of ten points.

[Bailey Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book and the TV show are pretty much the same, so if you're like me and happened to see the TV show first, it's nice because the book plot tends to get a little more complicated.

The funny Paul/Della scene is all TV and there's a lot more technical law terms and scenes in the book, but it's still a good story.

There's some hinted Perry and Della flirting which is the best, and I'm not going to lie - that's mostly why I read these books. (My ultimate OTP)

Recommended 12/13+ for murder, lawyer talk, some g-rated Perry and Della flirting, and language.

[Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE PERRY MASON BOOKS! I found my dads collection when I was 12, and I read every one I could get my hands on. Its great if you want to step back into a time when girls were "dames" and the craziest schemes were the perfect way to win court cases and solve crimes. Think Casablanca meets Nancy Drew

[Abbas · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my earliest Perry Mason stories...read it as a teenager in Karachi and was hooked to legal fiction!!! No way near Scott Turow of course but what a help he was in my spoken fencing skills!!!

[Lelyana's Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it 20 years ago, before Goodreads, so, marked.
I read this book when I still loved detective stories back then. Still am, but I need a bit or more romance in my books that is.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a good one. I was able to get pretty far into this one before figuring out the mystery. These still crack me up with the male/female dynamic.

[Aravena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Setelah dengar kabar ada adaptasi baru dari serial Perry Mason, saya jadi tergerak mencari lagi judul-judul tentang si pengacara cerdik ini yang belum saya baca (*masih banyak sekali :v).

Untuk kasus yang ini... dari judulnya saja sudah terasa menarik kan? Macam novel horornya Abdullah Harahap, tapi versi misteri kriminal dengan pengacara yang kelimpungan menghadapi klien merepotkan dan teka-teki korban yang 'hidup segan mati tak mau'. Awal ceritanya pun langsung membetot perhatian saat Perry harus menghadapi skenario rumit tapi menarik: apa yang harus dilakukan saat seorang pria parno sudah menyiapkan surat yang menuduh istrinya sendiri sebagai orang yang akan membunuhnya? Kenapa orang yang divonis sudah mati masih bisa kelayapan dengan mobil?? Bagaimana menghadapi seorang bibi yang tukang ikut campur dan berpotensi bikin masalah tambah runyam???

Tentunya, ekspektasi saya mengikuti ceritanya bukan untuk baca horor mayat berjalan, melainkan untuk menikmati keseruan legalitas dari situasi unik ini. Perkembangannya pun berjalan memuaskan, dengan akhir yang cukup mengejutkan dan membuat saya terkecoh karena saya terlalu terfokus pada satu tokoh yang amat menyebalkan dan membuat saya kepingin kalau dia pelakunya haha... padahal sudah jelas kalau dia hanya pengecoh alias red herring. Satu lagi poin plus judul ini selain skenario dan bagian pemecahannya: tokoh rival, Talbert Vandling, jaksa penuntut setempat yang 'mainnya cantik' dan tidak neko-neko seperti si Ham Burger atau jaksa-jaksa lain yang lebih bernafsu mengalahkan Perry daripada menemukan kebenaran. Sayang, sepertinya ia tidak tampil lagi di buku lainnya...

[B.R. Stateham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Give credit where credit is due. Gardner sometimes came up with complex murder cases for his legal-eagle, Perry Mason, to solve. And Mason, the ever-imaginative trial lawyer, basically figures it out in the middle of a trial defending the accused murderer.

And I have to say something about Della Street. Mason's His-Girl-Friday private secretary. She's one cool cookie who willing walks into situations Mason puts her in without batting an eye or hesitating in any way. Frankly, she'd make a hell of a lawyer herself. As it is, she's vital in Mason's crazy antics solving a case.

I enjoy reading the Perry Mason series. They are short, full of real 'whodunits,' and a window to view the social structure of Pre and Post World War II America.

[Tim Blackburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unexpected Ending

Man, I can never figure out who-done-it in a Perry Mason case. I missed this one badly even though, in retrospect, it was crystal clear. Oh well, that's what makes the Perry Mason series such great fun to read!!

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

the ending was unexpected tbh

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Case of the Runaway Corpse is my first Perry Mason novel, and I was definitely happy with it! In this detective novel, Perry Mason is hired by an unhappily married woman with a dying husband. The husband has been talking badly about her, telling others that his wife is trying to kill him, hinting that his wife has killed before. His wife, Myrna Davenport, knows that her husband has allegedly written a letter that will be delivered to the authorities if/when he dies. A letter that supposedly will paint quite a different picture of her. Her husband hasn't died just yet, though his death seems certain, when she hires Perry Mason to help her manage her estate. She gives Mason a key to her husband's office, a key for Mason to use once her husband has died. She hopes that Mason will discover the letter and the contents of the letter. That's the plan, at least. But that isn't exactly how events unfold....

I definitely enjoyed this one!!!

[Doug Dams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This starts out with a client afraid he will be murdered by his wife. But when his murder is reported the corpse can not be found. Mason locates it in a motel room, but it disappears from there before he can report it to police. Mason of course has a client accused of the murder and he has to solve the crime and why someone keeps moving the corpse. A pretty good mystery.

[Carissa Norris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good mystery. I stopped to think about the solution several times and got one part of it right, but not the details. Laughed at some fun banter between Perry and Della. I really liked the DA in this one. I would have liked to have seen less courtroom, more action, but still a good story nonetheless.

[Nags · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most fast-paced murder mysteries I have ever read. Perry Mason is quick, witty, charming, and outright brilliant. The ending was a bit of a wet mop on the whole pace of the book but I really don't see how else it could have gone. It did keep me guessing until almost the end though.

A quick and easy read, try it!

[James Vest · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great mystery, lots of twists, the biggest one being the DA and Mason's mutual cooperation to see the right person behind bars. The courtroom revelation is electric, easing into a nice toast, "To crime."

[Rakesh Ramakrishnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating is 3.5 (goodreads doesnt allow)
This did not involve much courtroom drama. Some parts felt repetitive. Not too thick a plot. There were so many constraints in the story that only a few outcomes were possible. So the reveal was not very surprising.

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've probably read about 10 Perry Mason books over the years, and they run from "really fun" to "crappy." This is pretty good, the best of it being the intelligence displayed by the characters.

[Kavita · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent book! The one I desperately wanted to be the murderer wasn't the murderer, so a little disappointed. But that's hardly the author's fault. :D

[Michele bookloverforever · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perry Mason does it again. good characters, good plot. 1 corpse...how many poisons?

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Perry Mason's character and would definitely read more of this series!

[Victoria Grusing · Rating 4 out of 5]

The personalities of Perry and Della come out funnier in the book than in the old TV series. It was fun reading.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Perry Mason novel dates from the mid 1950s, which was a good era in the long history of the Perry Mason stories. By that time, the books no longer had the film-noir feel of the earliest, as that had gone out of style, but they were more carefully crafted and better written than those of a decade later when they became dry and formulaic.

This is one of the best of the 1950s books, and is surely in the top 20% or so of all of them. Briefly, a man is poisoned in a motel room, and a doctor sees him die. But not ten minutes later someone sees "the corpse" going out the window and into a car! Yet the man is indeed found dead before long. Then later a second medical expert seems to contradict the first doctor.

In the meantime, the somewhat mousy wife of the man is arrested for murder. She has a companion, an older female distant relative who is the exact opposite of mousy. Is she putting it on? Is she really the woman's friend?

Adding to the tension, Mason and Della get into some hot water of their own. Then later there are two, count 'em two, small town DAs involved. Mason has great interactions with each, especially with the DA in Fresno where the trial occurs.

One drawback is that the client is not such an interesting or sympathetic character. This is counter-balanced by the great dialog and imaginative situation Mason gets into. As almost always with Gardner's Mason stories, all the clues are there for you to dope it out. You just have to put the pieces together the right way. Someone is lying, but who?

As usual, writing is spare, with not many descriptions. If you don't love cross-examinations, you won't like this one.

The TV episode based on this book is quite good. But they changed the tone by having the case tried in LA by Hamilton Burger. Here in the book there is a refreshing spirit of wary cooperation between the Fresno DA and Mason.

Recommended.

Characters:

Ed Davenport - Schemer whose sweet tooth does him in.
Myrna Davenport - Somewhat mousy husband of Ed, uses poisons in her garden.
Sara Ansel — Myrna’s aunt. She was devoted to her niece’s security and her niece’s money.
Mabel Norge — Ed Davenport’s devoted secretary. She had charge of his incriminating envelope and his bank account.
Jonathan Halder — Butte County D.A. He thought Mason a remarkably cooperative witness until he found himself doing all the answering.
Jason Beckemeyer — Detective from Fresno interested in people in motels.
Talbert Vandling — The D.A. of Fresno County. He was so wary and dangerous a prosecutor that Perry feared he’d met his match.
Dr. Milton Hoxie — The toxicologist. He stated without a shadow of doubt that the victim had died of cyanide poisoning, and certainly not from arsenic.
Dr. Herkimer Renault — The doctor who saw Ed Davenport die. He swore Davenport had symptoms of arsenic poisoning but ruled out cyanide absolutely.

[Serdar Poirot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bir gün Perry Mason'a acelesi olduğunu söyleyen 2 kadın gelir. Myrna Davenport ve Sara Ansel bir ölüm ihtimalin karşılık yardım isterler. William Delano ve yeğeni Hortice ölmüştür. Myrna'nın kocası Ed de karısının kendisini Hortice gibi öldüreceğini düşünmekte ve bunu sağda solda söylemektedir. Hatta bir belge hazırlayıp öldüğü zaman yetkililere teslim etmesi için sekreteri Norge'a teslim etmiştir. Ed'in öldüğünü Sara söyleyince hemen ofisine gidip mektubu bulmaya çalışırlar. Bulurlar ama içi boştur. Bu arada Norge da gelir. Ve hatta bir polis çağırır ama Mason ve Della onları atlatır. Yine de sonra zarfın buhar ile açılıp zamk ile kapandığı ortaya çıkacaktır. Savcı Halder Mason'a çağırır ve o da giderek gönüllü ifade verir. Ama Myrna yakalanmıştır. Onu ilk olarak Ed cinayetinden yargılayacaklar, oradan beraat ederse Hortice davası açılacaktır. Tanıkların söylediğine göre Ed morgdan pijamaları ile kaçmıştır. Ancak bir gün sonra bir çukurda ölü bulunur. Myrna bahçe ile uğraştığı işin arsenik ve potasyum siyanür sahibidir ve Ed'in şeker kutusunda bu zehirler bulunmuştur. Ortağı Beckenmeyer de ortalarda yoktur. Savcı Vandling baya bir uğraşır ama tanıklardan doktor Renault ve doktor Hoxie'nin ifadeleri uymaz. Renault arsenik zehirlenmesi olduğunu söylerken, Hoxie siyanür konusunda çok emindir. Mason'ın da tereddütlerim vardır. Bir şekilde Norge'u bulur ve onu sıkıştırır. Mahkemede zorla tanıklık yaptırır ama asıl hedefi başkadır. Acaba katil kimdir? Hızlı sonuç veren siyanür varsa ölü neden yemek yemiştir? Arsenik varsa neden midede çıkmamıştır? Bu parayı esas olarak kim istemektedir? Ed, Hortice'i zehirlemiş midir? Bunu kim planlamış ve planı suya düşmüştür? Vandling ve Mason işbirliği sonuç verecek midir ? Keyifle okunan bir roman.

[Richard Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first time reading a Perry Mason story, or anything by Erle Stanley Gardner. I liked it.

This was published in 1954, and it surprised me how some parts of it felt very modern and other parts felt the way I had imagined it. The forensics seemed pretty similar to today, and the quick travel--jumping on planes here and there at almost a moment's notice--was more modern than I thought I'd find in a Perry Mason story. In fact, many elements of the story--almost all of it, actually--could happen right now. These characters could have the same story today, it feels like.

One noticeable difference is the communication thing. Some of the story turns on the difficulty of getting a message to someone when they're not near a phone or if they plan to be driving or something, and those details would be totally different now in a murder mystery.

I like the way Perry Mason isn't screwing up the way he does on the newest TV show. He isn't superhuman, but he's very competent and very confident, which makes him a fun character to watch. (More fun than in the show. I'm waiting for him to be awesome there.) I don't know yet if this is a typical mystery for the series, but it moves along quickly, with lots of dialogue, and it actually feels more like a screenplay or radio script. It would be easy to turn it into one, anyway.

This is a quick read and a satisfying mystery. I have to admit it's more modern and nearer to my tastes than I expected to find, and I'm glad. Thrift stores have bunches of these books. :)

Recommended for readers of mysteries who, like me, haven't already tried Erle Stanley Gardner. Worth a shot.

[Gregory Moses · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very Phoenix Wright-ish Perry Mason novel; Hamilton Burger is absent, and Perry Mason must essentially team up with the Prosecutor to see justice done. The courtroom drama has a very different feel from usual, since both Mason and his opponent wind up bewildered by evidence that comes to light, and neither of them can really try to turn it to their advantage--the "dueling" aspect we often get where each of them is trying to turn the evidence to his advantage is therefore lacking.

Maybe because of that, this feels more like a "classic" Golden Age mystery than a lot of Perry Mason novels; it could easily be rewritten as a Poirot short story. I like that, but in other ways it feels under-baked--the idea that Mason is potentially going to be suspected of stealing evidence is introduced but swiftly discarded, and the personal element also gets short shrift; the client is a non-entity, and her personal conflict with another character is raised but doesn't go anywhere, and she doesn't even get to appear in the last chapter after she's inevitably found innocent.