Lovely Mary

Summary

A pastoral inheritance, a sprawling tract of land held jointly by the guileless Mary Lane and her easily swayed cousin Claiborne, becomes the unwitting crucible for a dramatic struggle between probity and perfidy. Into this seemingly tranquil setting strides Roland Manning, a real-estate agent whose professional acumen is swiftly overshadowed by an ardent affection for Mary. He meticulously crafts a transaction promising mutual prosperity, a seemingly unblemished path to financial security for the cousins. However, this nascent idyll is violently disrupted by Wade Dempster, a land speculator of dubious ethics, who orchestrates a cunning scheme to intoxicate Claiborne and divest him of his share through chicanery. To eliminate the incorruptible Roland as an impediment to his nefarious plans, Dempster executes a cold-blooded murder, then masterfully contrives to implicate Manning, plunging the honest agent into a labyrinthine legal nightmare where his innocence appears irretrievably compromised, leaving Mary to navigate a treacherous path towards justice.

Synopsis

Mary Lane and her cousin Claiborne want to sell some land left to them by their family. Real-estate agent Roland Manning falls in love with her, and prepares a deal that will make money for both of them. However, shady land speculator Wade Dempster plots to get Claiborne drunk and swindle him out of the land. In order to get the honest Roland out of the way, he has him framed for a murder that Wade himself committed. Things look hopeless for Roland.