Perry Mason is representing the small community of Cliffside which has just been made the target of a racy novel by Michael Pate. It's a kiss and tell memoir painting the town to be west coast version of Peyton Place. And the good citizens of Cliffside have retained Raymond Burr so that their secrets are not spilled to the world.
But Peggy McCrary has a special secret, she's a bit puritanical and doesn't trust the good judgment of her kids. She was once married to Pate and gave the kids the name of her second husband and she doesn't want her girls to find out they come from the seed of a rat.
But rats have more than one enemy and Pate has his usual collection, the same as any victim in a Perry Mason story. Just publishing a Peyton Place novel guarantees that. It turns out to be a surprise perpetrator, a character you thought of as peripheral.
When you can't figure the perpetrator, it's the sure sign of a good Perry Mason.
But Peggy McCrary has a special secret, she's a bit puritanical and doesn't trust the good judgment of her kids. She was once married to Pate and gave the kids the name of her second husband and she doesn't want her girls to find out they come from the seed of a rat.
But rats have more than one enemy and Pate has his usual collection, the same as any victim in a Perry Mason story. Just publishing a Peyton Place novel guarantees that. It turns out to be a surprise perpetrator, a character you thought of as peripheral.
When you can't figure the perpetrator, it's the sure sign of a good Perry Mason.