Can I just say how much this animal lover has enjoyed our year-long excursion through the Perry Mason Menagerie! Heck, any chance to hang out with Perry, Della, Paul, Lieutenant Tragg, and even D.A. Hamilton Burger are just the cure for what ails you in these troubling times. Are the Mason books formulaic? You bet they are – but it’s a winning formula, and Mason and Company are such dynamic characters that even when the case at hand flags, it’s nice to hang out with the gang for a Bacardi cocktail, a steak with all the fixings, and an after-dinner cigarette. 

Now we come to the end of a journey begun a few years ago with a howling dog and ending in 1960 (luckily before Gardner’s writing really falters) with The Case of the Waylaid Wolf. This shares certain features with our last entry, 1959’s The Case of the Mythical Monkeys: both open with a fetching secretary getting in harm’s way, showing real guts, and being rewarded by finding herself on trial for murder.

Our heroine in this case is Arlene Ferris, one of the most valued stenographers at the Lamont Rolling, Casting and Engineering Company. This girl works late without claiming overtime because if you love your job, why would you charge extra?!? On a rainy winter’s night, Arlene finds herself in a deserted parking lot with a car that won’t start. But then a rescuer descends in the person of Loring Lamont, son of the company’s owner. He’s tall and broad-shouldered and handsome:

“The mouth was smiling. He had regular, even teeth. There was just the hint of something about the lips which indicated he was rather spoiled, but the eyes were expressive, and there was a lean competence about him.”

After examining the car, Loring offers to drop Arlene at her apartment. That offer gradually turns into something else – something familiar in stories like this – but there’s no denying the authority with which Gardner relates this incident. Arlene finds herself at Loring’s mercy, but she is no shrinking flower. She effects an escape and decides that this wolf is not going to get away with what he tried to do to her and, no doubt, to other women. Naturally, when you want justice, you call Perry Mason, and the attorney is willing to go to bat for her despite, or maybe because of, what promises to be an uphill battle. Right away, however, their complaint hits a snag when Paul Drake informs them that Loring Lamont has just been found where Arlene left him, only with a large knife in his back.

Even though things are moving at a rapid clip, Mason still has time to discuss the philosophy of his work methods, this time with a friend of Arlene’s named Madge. We know that Mason is only happy when he’s helping underdogs with cases that have singular, puzzling features, but we also discover something new when Madge who, like me, seems to be a big Perry Mason fan, coos that he has a spectacular way of performing during a trial, and he responds:

“I try to make them interesting. Jurors are human. They’ll pay attention to something that interests them. If you start droning through the usual routine of handling a case, they’ll lose interest and you’ll lose the case.”

(Having sat on three juries myself, I can testify to at least a couple of lawyers who tried to be performative in a Perry Mason kind of way. Sadly, it never paid off for them.)

Arlene’s preliminary trial starts at Chapter Ten, perhaps the earliest of any Mason book I’ve read so far. It includes one of Mason’s convoluted schemes for skirting the law in order to destroy the prosecution’s theory of the case, but for the longest time, the D.A. seems to be ahead of Mason on this one. I thought the reason for this was obvious – and I was right. But thankfully, Gardner pulls a twist at the end that kept me from feeling smug the whole way through. 

Waylaid Wolf breaks no new ground in the canon: Mason’s tactics are, as always, questionable, Hamilton Burger is certain that this time he can get his adversary disbarred, the case closes in on our hero until the very last moment when luck comes Mason’s way in the form of a sympathetic judge. 

On second thought, I’ll take that back! Gardner offers a surprisingly modern take on male sexual dominance that is gratifyingly sympathetic to women and prescient in these times when predators with money and power are still getting away with their crimes. And he centers these feelings not on Mason or Burger, who are working their tails off trying to manipulate each other’s evidence, but on the judge, who probably commits as many infractions here in the cause of justice. Perhaps the most gratifying moments in this novel come from Judge Carleton Bayton, who has to remind Burger and his cronies that sometimes we have to look beyond circumstantial evidence and take into consideration the possibility that a victimized woman was telling the truth. 

*     *     *     *     *

“The Case of the Waylaid Wolf” debuted on February 4, 1961 as the sixteenth episode of Season 4 of Perry Mason. Beat for beat, it’s a pretty faithful rendition of the novel’s plot, but as often happens here, Jonathan Latimer had to strip the story of all the nuances that make the book an enjoyable read. Hamilton Burger is absent (this was during the time when William Tallman was fired for “immoral misbehavior.”), and the gamesmanship between prosecution, defense and especially the judge is largely missing. 

Perhaps the most noteworthy item about this episode is that two minor characters from the book are transformed into a Chinese married couple, adding a rare bit of diversity to the series. The man is played by veteran actor Benson Fong (Flower Drum Song, Tommy Chan in several Charlie Chan films), who made four separate appearances in the series and must therefore be counted a friend of the family. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour of the Mason Menagerie. Please exit the safari cart and make your way to the main entrance as the park is closing for good. BREAKING NEWS: the Perry Mason theme for 2026 has been decided upon and will be announced on the other side of the New Year. A very merry seasonal gift indeed, if you ask me!