The Case of the Backward Mule
Cover Artist: Frank McCarthyBy: Gardner, Erle Stanley
Publisher: Pocket Books of Canada, Ltd. (855)
Place of Publication:Montreal, Canada
Catalog #: Kelley Box 248: PS3513 .A6322 C219 1952
Contributor: S. Roe
General
Era: 1940sAuthor as on Cover: Erle Stanley Gardner
Publication:1952
Original Date: 1946
Setting: urban, including San Francisco's Chinatown
Plot Summary
Terry Clane, returning to San Francisco after concluding some successful war work in China, is met by the police and taken in for questioning. An investor for Cynthia Renton, his former fiancée, has been murdered. A man was convicted of the murder, but escaped just as his appeal was about to reach the Supreme Court. Cynthia has disappeared. Terry will need both his skills of concentration (learned in the Orient) and his photographic memory to solve this case. Unfortunately these skills aren't matched by an ability to understand the women in his life -- Cynthia and Sou Ha.Major Characters
Terry Clane adult male, called "Owl" by his former fiancée, dark wavy hair, occupation unclear; seems to be a free-lance problem solver, possibly employed by the government during World War IIHorace Farnsworth adult male, middle-aged, investment dealer
Edward Harold adult male
Yat T'oy adult male, Chinese, inscrutable eyes, mind that knows virtually everything which touches upon Clane's life or which might conceivably affect his happiness, Clane's trusted servant or "man of all work"
Cynthia Renton adult female, wild, impulsive, unconventional, portrait painter
Sou Ha adult female, Chinese, sparkling, vivacious young girl who had superimposed the education of a Western college upon an Oriental background