HUON OF THE HORN by Andre Norton is a retelling of the medieval romance Huon of Bordeaux, which reminds me of Orlando Furioso in its sprawling, random storytelling. The spine of the narrative is that Huon is a doughty warrior at King Charlemagne’s court who accidentally but fairly kills the king’s son. The disgruntled king doesn’t have grounds to kill Huon but he does set him a suicide mission; fortunately Huon has the friendship of Oberon, king of Faerie, who lends him the eponymous magic horn.
All that, however, wanders freely wherever the original author wnated to take it, so at one point Huon is leading the fight to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims because why not? Plus killer griffins, magnetic islands, giant snakes and more! I found it fun but if you prefer stories with a more coherent structure YMMV.
Erle Stanley Gardner’s THE CASE OF THE BORROWED BRUNETTE opens with a hook reminiscent of The Swooning Lady. Perry Mason and right-hand woman Della Street are driving through Los Angeles when they spot identically dressed lookalike brunettes on a half-dozen street corners. Perry stops and talks with one of them and learns it’s an audition, though they’re not sure for what.
It turns out the man behind it, Hines, wants to move the winner into one Helen Reedley’s apartment and pretend to be her. Obviously something is up, but it’s good money and seems legit (Hines has no problem with the winner bringing along a chaperone). The chaperone, Adele, convinces Perry to investigate, but before he’s dug very deeply, Hines shows up with a bullet in his head. And it appears to be from Adele’s gun. What follows is twisty enough I couldn’t keep track of all the plot threads, but I stayed entertained to the end.
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