When a stuttering bishop comes to Perry Mason's office for help, Mason becomes involved in a battle of wills with a woman and the long-lost daughter she believes to be a fraud. The key to the puzzle lies in the bishop--who, unfortunately, has disappeared.

Perry Mason has been batting around the Orient, taking a well-earned vacation. (Yes, Della Street is along.) We pick up on his way to the roar of the city, the jangle of telephones, the blast of automobile horns, to clients who lie to him and yet expect him to stand behind them. And Perry can hardly wait to get back!He doesn’t have to wait to get home, however, for excitement to start. Just out of Honolulu, a fellow passenger comes to him with a very strange story.Mason has already noticed the party of three: the middle-aged man with the piercing gray eyes, the slender, graceful woman, and the daughter who looks so much like a famous movie actress. Now beside the ship’s rail, he listens to the queer tale a woman tells in a voice of nervous hysteria. Until two months before she was known as Mrs. Moar. But overnight her husband — and so we have: The Case of the Substitute Face.

Before he created Perry Mason, Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) was one of the most popular writers for the mystery and adventure pulp magazines, with their sensational covers, two-fisted heroes, and non-stop action.Among his toughest characters was Sidney Zoom, wealthy yacht-owner who prowls at night to help the downtrodden in the days of the Great Depression. “The weak and the helpless found in him a haven of refuge, a gigantic wall of strength. The oppressor found in him a grim enemy, tireless uncompromising, letting no man-made law stand between him and his prey.” “His soul craved combat,” Gardner writes, “as the soul of many men craves strong drink.”The Casebook of Sidney Zoom is the first book-collection of the Zoom stories, and they show Gardner’s pulp style at it hard-hitting best.

Take two luscious redheads... add green-eyed blonde, mysterious burglary, and a bewildered fiancée... stir in a good measure of that unscrupulous attorney Alphonse Baker Carr... season with murder, and no wonder...“You’ve got to break an egg to make an omelet,” said Doug Selby, D.A. of Madison County, and he only hoped it would be one that old A. B. C. couldn’t digest.Plenty was on the fire, and Selby knew the only way to solve the case and save his reputation was to act faster than he ever had before... That was when he went to call on A. B. C.Sylvia Martin and Sheriff Rex Brandon do yeoman service as Doug smashes through to bring his most perplexing case to a triumphant conclusion.

When we found Perry Mason, we called SEVEN! When we met the “D.A.” — Douglas Selby — we shouted ELEVEN! They’re both naturals — and though Perry Mason does not take part in this novel, it marks the appearance of Erle Stanley Gardner’s second famous mystery-story character — the fighting young D.A. of Madison City!The little clergyman had died — peacefully — in bed in the Madison Hotel. An overdose of sleeping powder! “Now listen, Doug, this is just a natural death, see?” the hotel proprietor said anxiously.But Douglas Selby, District Attorney, just elected on a reform ticket, suspected it was more than that, and sent for the clergyman’s wife. She said the dead man was not her husband — then Selby knew definitely something was wrong.So Doug found himself faced not only with a wily murderer, but with virulence from a hostile press and reluctant witnesses as well. Who was the little clergyman — why was he murdered — by whom? The fighting D.A. at last finds out, through methods entirely different from Perry Mason’s. But the Gardner technique, the pace and the excitement that have endeared Mason to thousands, are present every minute in this story of Douglas Selby.

Crippen & Landru is proud to publish a collection of never previously reprinted stories from pulps, slicks and digests by Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) the great creator of Perry Mason. Here we meet such Gardner characters as Snowy Shane, an unorthodox P.I.; Slicker Williams, an ex-convict who uses the tricks of crookery to rescue a damsel in distress; Major Copely Brane, a freelance diplomat; George Brokay, wealthy man-about-town, who becomes a gentleman burglar — with unanticipated results; and others who show Gardner’s mastery of unusual situations, lighting-paced prose, and ingenious gimmicks and plot twists.

Debonair, quick-witted, and wealthy, he enjoyed the perks of his fortune, checking the newspapers in the comfort of his penthouse apartment for new burglaries and robberies to solve, and from which he could reclaim the stolen treasures.He has a valet, Beaver, nicknamed “Scuttle” by Leith, who is a secret plant of Sergeant Arthur Ackley. Leith, of course, is aware that his manservant is an undercover operative, using that knowledge to plant misinformation to frustrate the policeman again and again.

Hillerman, author of the Joe Leaphorn mysteries, and Herbert, editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, trace this short-story genre from its beginnings in the hands of Edgar Allen Poe through its development by the likes of Erle Stanley Gardner, Mary Roberts Rinehart and Anthony Boucher to its current practice by such masters as Marcia Muller. Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which established a great many of the whodunit conventions, is indispensable to such an overview. Raymond Chandler's "I'll be Waiting" emits a doom-laden atmosphere right from the first line; William Faulkner shows unexpected economy of language?and a transparent plot?in "An Error in Chemistry." Ed McBain scores high marks in "Small Homicide," in which the tiny details of a baby's untimely death resonate uncomfortably. As represented in this competent, unstartling collection, Linda Barnes ("Lucky Penny") easily outsasses Sue Grafton ("The Parker Shotgun"). Hillerman makes a solid appearance with "Chee's Witch," and in "Benny's Space" Muller captures the full subtle force of her novel-length vision.

Comely hula dancers go “around the island,” lanky cowboys go around the town, and the police go round and round, when Lester Leith interests himself in the mystifying case of the drugged guard.

The day she told her husband he could go his own way, were it blonde or brunette, she became a happy woman. Freed from the duty of preserving a contour that would keep Mr. Cool home nights, she gave up dieting, and serenely watched her figure expand to balloon-like proportions.Inside, she was hard as nails, shrewd and unscrupulous, stingy, avaricious. She handled cases no decent agency would touch. She hired Donald Lam for two reasons he hod brains, and she knew he needed a job so badly that she could get him for practically nothing. She watched his expense account like a vulture and did her best to deduct legitimate expenses from his already meager salary.But deep inside that mountain of flesh must have been a heart, for in spite of these instincts she developed an affectionate, almost solicitous, loyalty for Donald.You’ll like Bertha Cool. She is lusty and gusty and has personality.Every runt gets pushed around Donald Lam was no exception. The difference between him and most runts was that the harder you pushed the faster Donald came back. He discovered early in life that his hands weren’t much use to him in a fight, so he used his head. And there was nothing soft about Donald’s head. He used his mind and trained it mercilessly. Sometimes it got him into trouble because he was just a little too far ahead of the other fellow.Nor was Donald too ethical. He’d learned that if nature had made you pint size, it was easier to trip a man up than knock him down. Some people called Donald “poison.”There was only one thing about him that worried Bertha Cool. She thought he was too susceptible to women. Maybe he was. There was no doubt that women made fools of themselves over Donald. Bertha didn’t understand why but she didn’t mind. Donald’s girlfriends were pretty useful.

A new Gardner character — Bill Eldon! These two CLUE stories — each with a crime so calculated, so cold-blooded, that it came near being perfect — will establish human, kindly Sheriff Eldon as a dangerous rival for Perry Mason and Doug Selby.Rockville’s good-hearted, aging Sheriff was slowing up — or so some thought — and the crowd in the courthouse was out to get him. Rank inefficiency, they said, the way he boasts about studying people’s reactions more than material evidence. But Bill Eldon, patient under fire, proved the value of his method...The first clue...THE CLUE OF THE RUNAWAY BLONDESam Beckett found her body, lying face down in a plowed field, not far from the mansion where Marvin Higbee had lived and died, leaving his cunningly gathered wealth to a pack of quarrelsome relatives. She was beautiful — and a stranger. And there were no tracks in the soft earth around her, neither her own nor her murderer’s... A crime to cudgel with, this. But Sheriff Bill Eldon, moving slowly, relentlessly, found the answer — an answer that had the town reeling. Serialized as “Clues Don’t Count” in Country Gentleman, 1945.The second clue...THE CLUE OF THE HUNGRY HORSEWhen they found the body, the head caved in by the hoof of a restive mare, they identified it as Lorraine Calhoun. An accident, Calhoun said — and the district attorney agreed — a regrettable accident, nothing more. But Bill Eldon thought it was murder... And calmly untangling the skeins of human deception, he found a murderer masked by a sanctimonious face.Here are two fast-moving mysteries in one package. Here are shrewdly contrived plots, suspense, and a vital new investigator. Truly, Gardner at his customary best.

A collection of suspense stories, puzzle stories, whodunits and tricky whydunits involving police detectives, private eyes, talented and sometimes lucky amateurs, armchair detectives, and ethnic detectives.