Erle Stanley Gardner

Dime Detective magazine was the flagship detective pulp in the Popular Publications stable, running for almost 300 issues over twenty years. The July 1932 issue contains stories by J. Paul Suter, T.T. Flynn, Erle Stanley Gardner, James A. Goldthwaite, and Maxwell Hawkins, and includes an installment in the Horatio Humberton and Dick Bentley series.

Years ago, Alden Leeds struck it rich when he discovered a vein of gold. Now, aging and single, he finds himself surrounded by family waiting patiently to inherit his fortune. When he announces his engagement to a much younger woman, it sends that family into a panic, fearing that it might threaten their future gains. They have him admitted into a sanitarium, claiming incompetence--and that's when lawyering super-sleuth Perry Mason gets involved, but the case is about to get much more complicated...Before all is said and done, Mason will tangle with a cheating gambler, a blackmailer, multiple aliases, multiple corpses, and enough red herrings to lead even the most astute reader astray. It will push the attorney's deductive powers to their very limits before all is revealed, finally, in his masterful courtroom cross-examination.A fast-paced yarn with a delightfully convoluted plot, The Case of the Rolling Bones is among the best of the long-running Perry Mason novels, which would go on to inspire multiple television series as well as adaptations for radio and film. The book exemplifies the masterful page-turning action for which its prolific author is remembered today.

Years ago, Alden Leeds struck it rich when he discovered a vein of gold. Now, aging and single, he finds himself surrounded by family waiting patiently to inherit his fortune. When he announces his engagement to a much younger woman, it sends that family into a panic, fearing that it might threaten their future gains. They have him admitted into a sanitarium, claiming incompetence--and that's when lawyering super-sleuth Perry Mason gets involved, but the case is about to get much more complicated...Before all is said and done, Mason will tangle with a cheating gambler, a blackmailer, multiple aliases, multiple corpses, and enough red herrings to lead even the most astute reader astray. It will push the attorney's deductive powers to their very limits before all is revealed, finally, in his masterful courtroom cross-examination.A fast-paced yarn with a delightfully convoluted plot, The Case of the Rolling Bones is among the best of the long-running Perry Mason novels, which would go on to inspire multiple television series as well as adaptations for radio and film. The book exemplifies the masterful page-turning action for which its prolific author is remembered today.

Ninety-years ago, before Erle Stanley Gardner began writing the very successful Perry Mason series, he wrote for the pulp magazines. The hundreds of pulp magazines that published his works can be difficult to get these days. The pulps were called that because the magazines used cheap wood pulp for its paper, a process that created pages that were not meant to last a century. One of his most popular characters was Lester Leith, the urbane Robin Hood, who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, after taking his own commission. Written mostly during the Great Depression, these stories showed wit and humor that Gardner often displayed in his personal life, but infrequently in his works. Only a handful of the Lester Leith stories have appeared since their original publication dates. Hold Cash, Cold Clews will double the number of Leith stories anthologized. This is the fourth collection of Gardner s pulp characters in Crippen & Landru s Lost Classics series

From Perry Mason-creator Erle Stanley Gardner comes a lost classic of detective fiction featuring private eyes Donald Lam (once played by Frank Sinatra!) and Bertha Cool. Cool & Lam are back, in the case Raymond Chandler called "about the best of the series since the first two...perhaps since the very first." Hired to prevent a poisoning that hasn't happened yet, Donald Lam tries playing mind games with a prospective killer, only to wind up with two poisonings to solve - and two dangerous femme fatales, not to mention an adulterous dentist, a questionable real estate scheme, and a scientific system for betting the horses that someone might kill to keep secret...

Dime Detective magazine was the flagship detective pulp in the Popular Publications stable, running for almost 300 issues over twenty years. This premiere issue contains stories by Frederick Nebel and Erle Stanley Gardner, and the first appearance of Nebel's long-running series character, Cardigan.

Dime Detective magazine was the flagship detective pulp in the Popular Publications stable, running for almost 300 issues over twenty years. The second issue contains stories by T.T. Flynn, Maxwell Hawkins, J. Allan Dunn, Frederick Nebel, and Erle Stanley Gardner, and includes another appearance by Nebel's long-running series character, Cardigan.

Bertha Cool is the gruff, tough-talking, corpulent head of her private detective agency, opened after the death of her husband; Donald Lam is her meek, slight, and nervy new hire, who makes up for a lack of boldness with brilliant deductive work. The duo couldn't be any more dissimilar but, with their skills combined, they are an unstoppable force when it comes to solving crimes, as evidenced by their over two dozen successes in the long-running series penned by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner.In this, their first outing, Donald Lam is tasked with delivering divorce papers to a man who reportedly made a fortune in rigged slot machines. The only problem is that nobody--not even the police--can find him. Before long, Lam's seemingly-simple assignment finds him caught up in a web of money, mysterious safety deposit boxes, and a gang of toughs every bit as desperate as he is to find the runaway husband. Reissued for the first time in decades, and originally published under the A.A. Fair pen name, The Bigger They Come is an enjoyable private eye novel replete with puzzling scenarios and a humorous tone. As fast and twisty as anything Gardner ever wrote, the novel (and the series it spawned) is more Paul Drake than Perry Mason, but it is sure to please any fan of the Golden Age whodunnit. Includes discussion guide questions for use in book clubs.

Bertha Cool is the gruff, tough-talking, corpulent head of her private detective agency, opened after the death of her husband; Donald Lam is her meek, slight, and nervy new hire, who makes up for a lack of boldness with brilliant deductive work. The duo couldn't be any more dissimilar but, with their skills combined, they are an unstoppable force when it comes to solving crimes, as evidenced by their over two dozen successes in the long-running series penned by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. In this, their first outing, Donald Lam is tasked with delivering divorce papers to a man who reportedly made a fortune in rigged slot machines. The only problem is that nobody--not even the police--can find him. Before long, Lam's seemingly-simple assignment finds him caught up in a web of money, mysterious safety deposit boxes, and a gang of toughs every bit as desperate as he is to find the runaway husband. Reissued for the first time in decades, and originally published under the A.A. Fair pen name, The Bigger They Come is an enjoyable private eye novel replete with puzzling scenarios and a humorous tone. As fast and twisty as anything Gardner ever wrote, the novel (and the series it spawned) is more Paul Drake than Perry Mason, but it is sure to please any fan of the Golden Age whodunnit. Includes discussion guide questions for use in book clubs.

Following a money trail leads a PI into danger in this hard-boiled mystery by the creator of Perry Mason and author of Turn on the Heat. Brainy private detective Donald Lam is always one step ahead of the bad guys--but he's also smaller than them and typically gets beat up. That's why his boss, the ever-irascible Bertha Cool, has hired a martial arts master to teach him self-defense. The first class isn't easy for Donald, but he is rewarded with a new client . . . Henry Ashbury is concerned about his daughter's recent spending habits. He wants Donald to find out where her money is going, without letting on that he's a detective. So, going undercover as Ashbury's trainer, Donald soon learns the story behind the daughter's finances. But when his investigation also turns up a dead body, the diminutive detective must teach the killer a lesson in justice . . . "Lively wit and machinegun dialogue." --Ralph E. Vaughan, author of Murder in the Goblins' Playground "Gardner has a way of moving the story forward that is almost a lost art: great stretches of dialogue alternate with lively chunks of exposition, and the two work together perfectly, without sacrificing momentum." --Booklist

Dealing with debtors turns deadly for a prickly PI in this hard-boiled mystery by the creator of Perry Mason and author of Bats Fly at Dusk. A hot-headed widow and a glass-jawed ex-lawyer, Bertha Cool and Donald Lam seem like an unlikely duo of private detectives. Even so, they've managed to solve the most difficult of mysteries--when they're together. With Donald now on a European vacation, Bertha is hesitant to accept any new business--but money is money, and this new case seems routine enough . . . Bertha is hired to get sales engineer Everett Belder out of a $20,000 problem. Unfortunately, his troubles soon multiply. His wife is receiving poisoned-pen letters accusing him of infidelity. Then she disappears. And there's also the matter of the body in his cellar. With everything spiraling out of control, Bertha must determine who is behind this deadly game of cat and mouse before another murder comes into play. "No one has ever matched Gardner for swift, sure exposition." --Kirkus Reviews "The best American writer, of course, is Erle Stanley Gardner." --Evelyn Waugh

'The bestselling author of the century ... a master storyteller' New York TimesPerry Mason - a major new TV series

When Perry Mason stumbles upon a classified ad for a brown haired woman with very specific physical attributes, he takes note of the seemingly suspicious circumstances surrounding the job posting. Then the woman hired for the job gets in touch, describing the strange requests of her new employer--who pays her and her chaperone to stay inside an apartment and answer to another woman's name--and Mason knows there's a more knotted plot at play. But by the time he works out the first mystery, a second, with murder, is just getting started, and that's only the first twist that awaits him as he endeavors to prove the innocence of "the borrowed brunette."Together with his crime solving team of Paul Drake and Della Street, Mason winds his way through one of the most puzzling cases of his career, involving separated ex-lovers, a tangled series of impersonations, and scores of private detectives. In order to clear his client of the charges, though, he'll risk getting a few himself, before, in a final courtroom scene, breaking the case apart to the judge's satisfaction.Reissued for the first time in thirty years, The Case of the Borrowed Brunette is one of the most beloved whodunnits featuring the iconic Perry Mason character, inspiration for multiple hit television series bearing his name.

When Perry Mason stumbles upon a classified ad for a brown haired woman with very specific physical attributes, he takes note of the seemingly suspicious circumstances surrounding the job posting. Then the woman hired for the job gets in touch, describing the strange requests of her new employer--who pays her and her chaperone to stay inside an apartment and answer to another woman's name--and Mason knows there's a more knotted plot at play. But by the time he works out the first mystery, a second, with murder, is just getting started, and that's only the first twist that awaits him as he endeavors to prove the innocence of "the borrowed brunette."Together with his crime solving team of Paul Drake and Della Street, Mason winds his way through one of the most puzzling cases of his career, involving separated ex-lovers, a tangled series of impersonations, and scores of private detectives. In order to clear his client of the charges, though, he'll risk getting a few himself, before, in a final courtroom scene, breaking the case apart to the judge's satisfaction.Reissued for the first time in thirty years, The Case of the Borrowed Brunette is one of the most beloved whodunnits featuring the iconic Perry Mason character, inspiration for multiple hit television series bearing his name.

Perry Mason har det verkligen inte lätt! En påstridig klient ber honom skydda kvinnan som han älskar från att luras av en man som lockar med påhittade filmkontrakt. Naturligtvis blir hon polisens huvudmisstänkte till ett mord, men Mason tvekar inte att skydda henne genom att lägga ut villospår för polisen och att gömma undan ett vittne. En deckarklassiker för första gången på svenska! Boken avslutas med en extra Gardner-novell: De försvunna pärlorna. Fallet med den falska filmagenten gavs ut 1934 och var den tredje boken i Erle Stanley Gardners (1889 – 1970) långa saga om Perry Mason. Under 2020 har Perry Mason återigen varit aktuell tack vare en ny miniserie på TV-kanalen HBO. Boken inleds med ett förord om Gardners många bortglömda noveller. Originalets titlar: The Case of the Lucky Legs (1934) och Restless Pearls (1934). "Advokaten Perry Mason är otvivelaktigt mest till sin fördel i de tidiga romanerna." JAN BROBERG

From Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner - during his life, the best-selling American author of all time -- comes a lost classic of detective fiction featuring private eyes Donald Lam (once played by Frank Sinatra!) and Bertha Cool. Has Donald Lam gone to the dark side? From the world-famous creator of "Perry Mason," Erle Stanley Gardner - at his death the best-selling American writer of all time - comes another baffling case for the Cool & Lam detective agency: SHILLS CAN'T CASH CHIPS. Return to the 1960s as a simple insurance investigation into a car accident puts Bertha Cool and Donald Lam on the trail of murder - and Donald hip-deep in danger when he poses as an ex-con to infiltrate a criminal gang. It's Gardner's twistiest caper ever, and a fitting capper to Hard Case Crime's revival of this classic (and long unavailable) detective series.

A crime thriller starring the sleuthing lawyer portrayed in the HBO limited series--from the Edgar Award–winning “kingpin among the mystery writers” (The New York Times). Stewart Bedford is willing to cooperate with a blackmailer to protect his beloved wife. But when he wakes up in a daze to find the man shot dead with Bedford’s gun and his blond escort missing, he’ll need some help from defense lawyer Perry Mason . . . This mystery is part of Edgar Award–winning author Erle Stanley Gardner’s classic, long-running Perry Mason series, which has sold three hundred million copies and serves as the inspiration for the HBO show starring Matthew Rhys and Tatiana Maslany. DON’T MISS THE NEW HBO ORIGINAL SERIES PERRY MASON, BASED ON CHARACTERS FROM ERLE STANLEY GARDNER’S NOVELS, STARRING EMMY AWARD WINNER MATTHEW RHYS

The Edgar Award–winning author’s tale of a missing woman and a crime ring, featuring the lawyer and detective who inspired the HBO limited series. Defense lawyer Perry Mason needs a temporary typist, but the one he hires turns out to be more temporary than expected. When she disappears, leaving a couple of diamonds behind in her haste, Mason winds up taking on a new client: a gem importer in his office building who’s been charged with smuggling and murder. But if Mason’s going to untangle this case, finding the typist is key . . . This mystery is part of Edgar Award–winning author Erle Stanley Gardner’s classic, long-running Perry Mason series, which has sold three hundred million copies and serves as the inspiration for the HBO show starring Matthew Rhys and Tatiana Maslany. “Millions of Americans never seem to tire of Gardner’s thrillers.” - The New York Times DON’T MISS THE NEW HBO ORIGINAL SERIES PERRY MASON, BASED ON CHARACTERS FROM ERLE STANLEY GARDNER’S NOVELS, STARRING EMMY AWARD WINNER MATTHEW RHYS