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?

"Lost for more than 75 years, ... this tale of adultery and corruption, of double-crosses and triple identities--however shocking for 1939--shines today as a glorious present from the past, a return to the heyday of private eyes and shady dames, of powerful criminals, crooked cops, blazing dialogue, and delicious plot twists. Donald Lam has never been cooler--not even when played by Frank Sinatra on the U.S. Steel Hour of Mystery in 1946. Bertha Cool...

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 his 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. Even more puzzling, however, is the...

"Years ago Alden Leeds found a rich vein of gold in the Klondike. Now his greedy relatives fear he's planning to throw his fortune away on a gold-digging spouse, Emily Milicant. So to prevent the two from joining in holy matrimony, they commit their affluent kin to a sanitarium on a trumped-up charge. Then Leeds escapes, only to end up in the company of Emily's blackmailing brother, John, a manufacturer of fixed dice, rolling bones that always come...

After con man Greg Moxley married Rhoda Lorton, he took her money and flew, only to have his plane crash. Years later, Rhoda weds millionaire scion Carl Montaine. But now Moxley has turned up alive and well, with plans to pocket the Montaine fortune...or else make Rhoda's bigamy public.