'Why would anyone hire a girl with the figure of a stripteaser and pay her $100 a week to put on weight?' Perry Mason asked Della Street.

'In the course of my secretarial career,' Della said demurely, 'I've seen quite a few approaches, but this is a new one.'

'According to the letter of this contract,' Mason mused, 'if Dianne Alder should marry a millionaire and her husband should die, the party of the first part would be entitled to fifty percent.' Suddenly Mason snapped his fingers.

'You've got it?' Della Street asked.

'I have an explanation. I don't know whether it's the explanation, but it's quite an explanation'.

'The bestselling author of the century ... a master storyteller' New York Times

About the Author
Born in Malden, Massachusetts, Erle Stanley Gardner left school in 1909 and attended Valparaiso University School of Law in Indiana for just one month before he was suspended for focusing more on his hobby of boxing than his academic studies. Soon after, he settled in California, where he taught himself the law and passed the state bar exam in 1911. The practise of law never held much interest for him, however, apart from as it pertained to trial strategy, and in his spare time he began to write for the pulp magazines that gave Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler their start. Not long after the publication of his first novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws, featuring Perry Mason, he gave up his legal practice to write full time. He had one daughter, Grace, with his first wife, Natalie, from whom he later separated. In 1968 Gardner married his long-term secretary, Agnes Jean Bethell, whom he professed to be the real 'Della Street', Perry Mason's sole (although unacknowledged) love interest. He was one of the most successful authors of all time and at the time of his death, in Temecula, California in 1970, is said to have had 135 million copies of his books in print in America alone.

Reviews
The bestselling author of the century ... a master storyteller * NEW YORK TIMES *
With Perry Mason, Erle Stanley Gardner introduced to American letters the notion of the lawyer as a hero - and a detective - which were remarkable innovations. He even gave defence lawyers a good name to boot. His Mason books remain tantalising on every page and brilliant -- Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent and Testimony
Kingpin among the mystery writers * NEW YORK TIMES *
No one has ever matched Gardner for swift, sure exposition * KIRKUS *
The only dull pages in this book are the blank ones just inside the covers * NEW YORK TIMES *
For fans of classic hard-boiled whodunits, this is a time machine back to an exuberant era of snappy patter, stakeouts, and double-crosses * LA TIMES *
You know Perry Mason ... and that is what makes the Perry Mason stories worthwhile * NEW YORK TIMES *



Book Information
ISBN 9781471908767
Author Erle Stanley Gardner
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint The Murder Room
Publisher The Murder Room