Showing results by author "Erle Stanley Gardner" in All Categories

Married Eva Griffin has been caught with a prominent congressman, and is ready to pay the editor of a sleazy tabloid hush money to protect the politician. But first Perry Mason tracks down the publisher of the blackmailing tabloid and discovers a shocking secret, which eventually leads to Mason being accused of murder. This is the first Perry Mason mystery and our introduction to secretary Della Street, detective Paul Drake, and the great lawyer himself.

Lorraine Elmore is a well-to-do widow who's ready to marry again. But nervous Linda Calhoun is certain that the man her aunt Lorraine has fallen for is a fortune-hunting Bluebeard who's out to make a killing - in more ways than one. Perry Mason allays Linda's paranoia - until Detective Paul Drake digs up enough dirt to convince the lawyer that dashing, mysterious Montrose Dewitt is digging a grave for his bride-to-be.

Young Marjorie Clune's best asset is her greatest misfortune: a pair of exquisite legs. They attract the perfect heel, a self-professed movie promoter named Frank Patton, whose scam seems even more flawless than Marjorie's lissome limbs. When the hype clears, the local chamber of commerce is many dollars poorer, Marjorie's been hung out to dry - and Patton's been found with the knife of Marjorie's lover implanted in his chest....

After con man Greg Moxley married Rhoda Lorton, he took her money and flew - only to have his plane crash. Years later, Rhoda weds millionaire scion Carl Montaine. But now Moxley has turned up alive and well...with plans to pocket the Montaine fortune - or else make Rhoda's bigamy public. Desperate to protect the good name of Montaine, Rhoda seeks out Perry Mason. But before Mason can reel in Moxley, somebody murders the scheming blackmailer.

Criminal lawyer and all-time #1 mystery author Erle Stanley Gardner wrote close to 150 novels that have sold 300 million copies worldwide. His most popular books starred the incomparable attorney-sleuth Perry Mason. The Case of the Sulky Girl: An impetuous niece who demands her trust fund be released comes to Perry Mason for help. But it's her boyfriend who needs defending when he is charged with murdering her controlling uncle.

In order to help her seriously ill boyfriend, gorgeous Sally Madison sets out to separate wealthy Harrington Faulkner from some of his money by offering him a cure for his ailing exotic fish, but her plan goes awry when the fish mysteriously vanish and Faulkner turns up dead.

While enjoying a leisurely ocean cruise in the company of secretary Della Street, Perry Mason is approached by passenger who is worried about the wellbeing of her husband. Not long afterward, her husband is seen jumping off the ship, an apparent suicide - but when the body is recovered, it turns out that he was shot. Accused of murder, the wife puts her fate in the hands of Perry, who in the course of piecing things together unearths the fact that the husband had once accepted a huge bribe while serving on a jury.

Though some think they saw a ghost, it was a real, live woman in the (mostly exposed) flesh flitting through Sierra Vista Park. Eleanor Corbin has a taste for trouble - and a talent for getting out of it using the most outrageous means to cover her tracks. Now her scandalized half-sister, Olga, fears Eleanor may be using lascivious antics to camouflage more larcenous acts.

The Case of the Lucky Legs is the story of a confidence man who promoted fake beauty pageants in small California towns. Marjorie Clune was one of his winning victims, "The Girl with the Lucky Legs". She was promised a Hollywood movie contract, but the scam artist fled with the money. Marjorie fled too; left her hometown in shame to try and “prove” herself in Hollywood. Perry Mason is hired to track her down, but when the deceitful pageant promoter turns up murdered, Marjorie becomes the prime suspect in this “edge of your seat” murder mystery.

When Perry Mason and Paul Drake ran the ad, all they were hoping for was a clue to the identity of a hit-and-run driver. The first reply looked suspicious. It said that the license number of the wanted car was written down in the notebook of a woman who could be out of her apartment from two to five on a certain afternoon, and a key to the apartment was enclosed.

Thanks to a bungled robbery at a fancy hotel, the already-married Eva Griffin has been caught in the company of a prominent congressman. To protect the politico, Eva's ready to pay the editor of a sleazy tabloid his hush money. But Perry Mason has other plans. He tracks down the phantom fat cat who secretly runs the blackmailing tabloid -only to discover a shocking scoop. By the time Mason's comely client finally comes clean, her husband has taken a bullet in the heart.

Helen Cadmus was dead - but how had it happened? Suicide, most people said. She jumped off that millionaire's yacht in a fit of despair, her body was never found, and the case was closed. The story was too neat to suit Perry Mason. It didn't add up. Somebody was concealing the truth about Helen's death, and how was going to uncover it even if it killed him.

When Norda Allison saw her husband-to-be slap his young son, she immediately called off the wedding. Now she is terrified. Her ex-fiancé has beat up her new boyfriend. Anonymous newspaper clippings are flooding her mailbox - articles graphically depicting what jilted men do to the women who leave them. Then Norda's life takes an even darker turn. It begins with a barking dog, a child's scream, a gunshot, and the discovery of a very dead body - and ends when Norda is arrested.

In The Case of the Howling Dog, Arthur Cartwright, an anxious man, goes to Perry Mason to have his neighbor arrested for his vindictive and noisy dog. He is under the belief that his howling is an indication that somebody has been murdered in the neighborhood. He demands that his will be written bequeathing the estate to the lady living at the neighbor's house. However, the will is mysteriously altered by an unknown person, and Cartwright goes missing, along with the lady.

Wealthy Amelia Corning, owner of the Corning mine interests, might be an old lady in a wheelchair but she doesn't miss a trick. Secretary Susan Fisher has to call in Perry Mason when she finds her boss's seven-year-old son holding a shoebox stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. Miss Corning's life is at risk.

In his will, Peter Laxter guaranteed his faithful caretaker a job and a place to live...for life. But Laxter's grandson Sam says the deal doesn't include the caretaker's cat - and he wants the feline off the premises by hook, crook...or poison. When Perry Mason takes the case, he quickly finds there's much more at stake than an old man's cat - a million dollars or more to be exact....

The client was young, blonde, and beautiful, and she wanted to disappear. The trouble was she wouldn't say why, and she wouldn't give her name. So Perry Mason agreed to a code of identification based on her measurements: 36-24-36. But according to Della Street, the figures were padded, and as it turned out, so was everything the client said. Certainly the bag full of cash she carries isn't shopping money.

Compared to a juicy murder trial, a case of feuding neighbors isn't exactly Perry Mason's cup of tea. But Arthur Cartright insists that Mason is the only one who can muzzle the howling hound that's driving Cartright crazy. But Perry doesn't realize just how crazy until he meets his client's neighbor. Clinton Foley says Cartright is barking up the wrong tree with his canine companion - and swears that the man is dangerously insane to boot.

"The Case of the Irate Witness," the mystery which is the star of this collection of 4 novelettes, is the only one that the incomparable Erle Stanley Gardner ever wrote featuring Perry Mason in short story form. Each of the stories revolves around the subject of stolen jewels and each story is a gem in itself.

In this mystery classic, Perry Mason takes on the case of a young woman whom the authorities accuse of exploiting her wealthy uncle. The Case of the Beautiful Beggar is part of Erle Stanley Gardner's massively popular, always compelling Perry Mason series. Everyone's favorite crusading attorney must use all his investigative and interrogatory skills to crack the case and win the trial.