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

Frances Celane has good reason to pout. Thanks to a provision in her late father's will administered by her uncle, she's caught in the middle of a family feud between matrimony and money. If she chooses marriage, she loses a million. But beautiful young Frances has a strong will of her own that she's not afraid to use. One way or another, she means to hear wedding bells and cash registers making beautiful music together. Her first move: hire Perry Mason to orchestrate things.

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.

It all began when pretty Gladys Doyle lost her way and was forced to spend the night in a remote cabin. The next morning she discovered her handsome host gone and a stranger in his place - dead as the proverbial herring.

Art student Maxine Lindsay, as the guest of her mentor, art dealer Colin Durant, attends a reception aboard the yacht of millionaire Otto Olney , who is unveiling his newest purchase, a $130,000 Gauguin. When Durant confides that the painting is a fake, Maxine becomes involved in a complicated series of deceptions. Soon gallery owner Leslie Rankin threatens Maxine.

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.

Virginia Baxter is the only witness still living who can vouch for the authenticity of Lauretta Trent's will. Lauretta Trent, a wealthy widow is also living. But for how long? Someone has been peppering the spicy food Lauretta loves with arsenic. Could it be the same someone who tried framing Virginia Baxter for drug smuggling?

Did Wealthy Fremont Sabin divorce his wife before his untimely death? That's the multimillion-dollar question. And the right answer will mean a windfall for either the dead man's angry son or headstrong widow. Each has accused the other of destroying Sabin's will - and murdering Sabin. But with no document declaring to whom the affable eccentric intended to leave his fortune, Perry Mason faces a prickly puzzle.

The blonde wandering nude at the Remuda Gold Club tells Perry Mason a strange story. She says that while she peacefully sun-bathed near the course, someone made off with her Cadillac, her trailer, and all of her belongings - including her precious diary. The woman blames the police who suspect her of having stashed away nearly half a million dollars allegedly stolen by her father, who is now in prison. She swears that both she and her father are innocent. So who is bankrolling her leisurely lifestyle?

Successful florist Mildred Faulkner finds that the flower business is no bed of roses when arch-competitor Harry Peavis secretly buys stock in her small, family-owned business. To keep from being muscled out of her own company, Mildred goes to Perry Mason. But the legal eagle is stymied when Mildred's company is plundered by her brother-in-law to pay off gambling debts. The money trail leads to a nightclub hostess and her boss. When both are found dead, the trail of evidence leads back to Mildred.

Who was that masked woman? That was the question plaguing Perry Mason. No one loves a good mystery more than Mason - but being asked to represent a client who is concealing her identity, not to mention the particulars of her case, has given even the legendary legal eagle a case of ruffled feathers. Yet the intriguing cloak-and-dagger tactics have Perry hopelessly hooked. As for the silent siren behind the mask, is she heiress Byrl Gailord or penniless Adelle Hastings?

In 1945, Erle Stanley Gardner, noted attorney and author of the popular Perry Mason mysteries, was contacted by an overwhelmed California public defender who believed his doomed client was innocent. William Marvin Lindley had been convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl along the banks of the Yuba River, and was awaiting execution at San Quentin. After reviewing the case, Gardner agreed to help - it seemed the fate of the "Red-Headed Killer" hinged on the testimony of a colorblind witness.

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.

"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.

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.

The voice on the phone was young and silky. The woman it belonged to touched something soft in Perry Mason's cool, legalistic mind. The offer she made was too intriguing to pass up. But what began as a request for a simple courtroom visit turned into an intrigue of baffling complexity...as well as one of the most cleverly rigged frame-ups of Perry's career.

When Mae Farr becomes the presumed stalking victim of wealthy playboy Penn Wentworth, she asks Perry Mason for help. Wentworth says he merely wants her for forging his name on a fat check. Farr claims he just wants her. Enter Harold Anders, a love-struck suitor from Mae's small hometown who's determined to ride to her rescue. But fatal gunplay leaves Wentworth dead, Mae a wanted woman, and Perry Mason in trouble....

A talented but overprotective young man has his hands full as trustee of the inheritance of a beautiful blonde but very naive young woman. But his love and her money don't mix. Why would he embezzle a quarter of a million dollars from his client "for her own good?" Perry Mason may be able to prove, in fact, that his client is no embezzler...but what happens when murder rears its head?

Ellen Robb does more than just sing for her supper - she also dances and sells cigarettes in a two-bit gambling parlor in a one-horse town. But when she hits a sour note with her scheming employer by refusing to help fleece a fat-cat customer in a crooked card game, she finds herself out of all three jobs. That's when she sings her song of woe to Perry Mason, who promises to turn her blues into greenbacks with the help of his crack team, Della Street, and Paul Drake, and a hefty lawsuit.

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.

Mason gives Della Street two weeks' vacation! That is, it was supposed to be a vacation, but Della turned it into a busman's holiday. Target of interest was a well-stacked blonde - one who incredibly stashed away five enormous meals a day.