Erle Stanley Gardner

The bait is half of a $10,000 bill, delivered to Perry Mason by a man who promises the second half of the note should his companion, a silent masked woman, ever require the lawyer's services. When a dead body is discovered soon after, Mason feels the hook--but how can one prove the innocence of a person whose identity is unknown?

"Sleuthing attorney Perry Mason can't resist a good mystery, so when he sees an older woman being accused of shoplifting during a department store outing with his assistant, Della Street, he doesn't hesitate to intervene. Armed with an assumption of innocence and the legal acumen to silence her accuser, Mason leaps to the woman's defense--until her niece appears, acknowledging her aunt's guilt, and pays for the stolen items. Soon thereafter, Aunt...

Another in the original courtroom novels that inaugurated the legal thriller genre finds Mason tracing the origins of two mysterious checks sent to him by a woman he has never heard of, who has run away with her daughter's boyfriend

An Edgar Award–winning account of miscarriages of justice, wrongful convictions, legal battles, and landmark reversals by the creator of Perry Mason.   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...

Sylvia Bain Atwood, a green-eyed beauty in charge of her ailing father's estate, calls on Perry Mason when one of her father's creditors tries to blackmail the family

"Helen Kendal's woes begin when she receives a phone call from her vanished uncle Franklin, long presumed dead, who urges her to make contact with criminal defense attorney Perry Mason; soon after, she finds herself the main suspect in the murder of an unfamiliar man. Her kitten has just survived a poisoning attempt, as has her aunt Matilda, the woman who always maintained that Franklin was alive in spite of his disappearance. Lucky that Helen took...

A suspicious Miss Lonelyhearts advertisement leads the famous defense attorney into a complicated situation involving a disputed will, a key witness, and a greedy relative

SHE PLAYED THE ODDS – AND LOST!
When the beautiful girlfriend of a notorious gangster vanishes, the last man to be seen with her needs an alibi – and fast.  Enter Donald Lam of the Cool & Lam detective agency.  Donald tracks down the two women with whom his client claims to have spent the night and the client declares the case closed.
But it’s not.  Something about his client’s story doesn’t add...

Virginia Baxter is the only witness still living who can vouch for the authenticity of Lauretta Trent's will. Wealthy widow Lauretta Trent is still living, but for how long? Someone has been peppering the spicy food she loves with arsenic. Could it be the same someone who framed Virginia Baxter for drug smuggling? Lauretta Trent doesn't trust her greedy heirs. But could a scheming servant be behind a master plan to fleece her estate? But when Lauretta...

From the very first time Perry met the voluptuous blonde, Lucille Barton, she pitched him trouble. She lied about her past, about her many marriages, about her gun, and about her boyfriends. Then the murders began. And the cops turned up with evidence which pointed clearly to one person as the killer, Perry Mason.