Cece Caruso is a biographer by trade. Her latest subject is Perry Mason’s creator, the prolific Erle Stanley Gardner. The problem is that our girl has a serious case of writer’s block, and she can only ignore her editor’s persistent phone messages for so long. Looking to get a handle on ESG the man, Cece decides to follow up on a letter she found while digging in his archives. The letter is from Joe Albacco, a convicted felon sitting in prison for murdering his young wife. The wrinkle of course is that Joe claims he is innocent.

After some initial notations, Cece can find no further follow-up on Gardner’s part. So she decides to pay a visit to Joe Albacco, still sitting in prison, to get a handle on her subject. Instead she gets wrangled into Joe’s plight – an innocent man who has been rotting away in prison for 40 years. Cece, unable to keep her curiosity in check, decides to do some snooping, and what she turns up are a whole lot of skeletons and a fresh dead body.

Kandel’s debut is an interesting hybrid of pulp meets cozy. Cece is a divorced woman with a grown daughter – a daughter whose once happy marriage is now on the rocks. Besides her mystery obsession, she has a snail problem in her garden, a teacup poodle, a cat, and a closet full of vintage clothing. All this and the general craziness of living in West Hollywood.

I have a theory on why a large chunk of mystery novels are set in California – the kooks. Okay, the eccentric characters if you will. There are plenty here and they all make charming additions. Mix in the interesting tidbits about ESG, his novels, local history, vintage fashion, and architecture – it all makes for a fun read. While Cece may be pure cozy, the rest of it screams 1940s pulp. I wanted to jump in my car and take a sightseeing tour of Ventura, California, by the time it was all done. Heck, I started fantasizing about Joan Crawford’s shoulder pads.

The mystery here is really very good, as Cece has a lot of puzzle pieces, but can’t seem to make them all fit until the very end. While the police believed they had an open and shut case against Joe Albacco at the time, what Cece uncovers suggests anything but. When she begins to get stalked by someone driving a black SVU, she knows she’s onto something.

The whole book is really very clever, from the Perry Mason and vintage fashion references to the snappy dialogue. There’s a lot of cross appeal to be had in Kandel’s debut, mainly thanks to its unique premise. Whether your interest is colorful settings, eccentric characters, cozy mysteries, Erle Stanley Gardner, vintage fashion, or pulp fiction in general, I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason has it all. Here’s hoping that Kandel is hard at work on book number two.

--Wendy Crutcher