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

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.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Never before in audio, these vintage stories are the darkest of the dark, and the best of the best.

Crime fiction fans old and new will delight in rediscovering these taut, character-rich, heart-stopping tales, now on audio for the first time.

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?

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.

The two women in Perry Mason's office were a cat-and-mouse combination. And at first glance it seemed that little Mrs. Davenport was the mouse. But her husband said she was trying to kill him...that she had already murdered once and would not hesitate to strike again. Mason's own curiosity made him take the case, and before long he was wanted for questioning by several different officers of the law. Question: was Myra Davenport a quiet little person, who enjoyed nothing better than pottering about in her garden? Or was she a poisoner, a minx, a modern Lucrezia Borgia?

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.

Perry Mason had no hesitation in defending Albert Brogan, a broke ex-salesman against a charge of robbery. He's counting on the testimony of the nightclub hostess Martha Lavina to clear him. She had most of the requirements for a good professional hostess, and one was an innocent face. That, plus various other attractions, made her a formidable challenge as she faced Perry Mason on the witness stand.

Criminal lawyer and all-time number-one 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. In The Case of the Curious Bride, a woman claiming not to be a bride consults Mason about her "friend", whose husband, long thought to have died in a plane crash, turns up alive.

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....

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.

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.

After catching his shady son-in-law, Jack Hardisty, in the act of embezzling, wealthy banker Vincente Blane plans to hang him out to dry. Then murder turns Blane's restful mountain retreat into Hardisty's final resting place. When the evidence points to wronged wife Millicent, her father makes a point of calling in Perry Mason. And it's up to the legendary legal eagle to unravel the case's most baffling mystery: a buried clock at the murder scene.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Who killed Philip Rease? Peter Kent was known to be a sleepwalker and a bloodstained knife was found under his pillow. There were people who would like to see Peter Kent out of the way, but would they frame him for murder? And would that explain the reason for Rease's death? It was another case full of traps for Perry Mason.

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.

Joan Kirby doesn't believe her husband's story about picking up a stranded woman in the middle of the night and dropping her off at a hotel. She asks Perry Mason to cross-examine him. Mason uncovers a much murkier trail involving murder, illegal adoption, stolen narcotics and blackmail.