Goldfish — a golddigger — and a valuable secret formula net Perry Mason the most baffling case of his career — and he nearly gets caught on his own hook...Humorless Harrington Faulkner was fit to be tied. That golddigger was making preposterous demands — but if he didn’t pay, his goldfish would die. And they were special goldfish — he’d developed the strain himself — Veil Tail Moor Telescopes, they were, the ‘fish of death’...Perry Mason thought he was a crank with a taller fish story than usual.And then the fish disappeared and a body was found on the bathroom floor — beside a shattered goldfish bowl...From then on Della Street and Perry Mason are in the case up to their necks, along with:SALLY MADISON: a beautiful girl with model proportions, definitely not as good as gold...TOM GRIDLEY: a chemist and an idealist — the inventor of formulas and trouble for Sally...JANE FAULKNER: the second Mrs. Faulkner, who turns out to be not as dumb as she looks...ELMER CARSON: cagey co-owner of Faulkner’s business with a proprietary interest in other things...GENEVIEVE FAULKNER: the first Mrs. Faulkner and the reason Harrington Faulkner was afraid of divorces...WILFRED DIXON: her business counsellor who knew how to bluff but didn’t like to be called...JAMES STAUNTON: a gentleman who underwrites more than insurance...

A shot...A splash...A shout...and Perry Mason finds himself treading the deepest water of his career. This time, he nearly goes wider...Things were tense aboard Parker Benton’s yacht. About the only thing the group had in common was the bad weather and a highly controversial business proposition. When that subject came up, tempers came out — and in no time at all the spine-chilling cry “Man O-ver-boar-r-d” cut through the fog...

“I count eight,” said Perry Mason, meaning brunettes.They were almost identical brunettes, at that, all standing at consecutive corners on the south side of the street, and they added up to such a beautiful dark mystery that even Perry Mason, famous connoisseur of fine murders that he is, was so fascinated he almost began a new career — behind bars.Mathematically Eva Martell was perfect: her height was five feet four and one-half inches, her weight one hundred and eleven, her waist twenty-four, her bust thirty-two.Because of these dimensions, curiously enough, she attracted dead bodies... She has also attracted one of Gardner’s top voltage plots, the kind that keeps Perry Mason and Della Street sizzling around in bizarre clues, counter clues and extra-legal activities. The kind that keeps Gardner readers up till dawn convinced that at last they are going to out-mastermind him.Gardner knows how to make his characters come to life. He also knows how to kill them off under completely baffling circumstances. He doesn’t believe in tricking his readers; it might be dangerous. So he gives you all the evidence with machine- gun rapidity — and lets you trick yourself. Even the most successful lawyers and criminologists come to a bad end the minute they tangle with a Gardner plot. Which is what makes him so successful.With this thought in mind we leave you, on the brink of one more Perry Mason mystery that anyone can figure out — wrong.

Don’t look now — but there’s a mystery behind those funs. And there’s a horse behind that mystery... Take it from PERRY MASON and DELLA STREET, you’re about to witness the finest display of legal fireworks of the year — with Perry an accomplice in murder.It all starts quietly enough — with two cars side-swiping each other in the middle of the desert. And in the trunk of one of them, an indent jalopy, Perry Mason finds a fan-dancer’s wardrobe. (Item: 2 fans; Item: 1 pair of dancing shoes).The fans lead to one of the most beautiful clients Perry Mason has ever had... and to a body. A body on the end of a Japanese sword...They also lead to a beautiful mental teaser for you, with Gardner dropping his clues as fast as you can pick them — or his book — up. Here it is, a real legal twister!

In this novelette Perry Mason solves the case of the death of a blackmailer and the disappearance of an amnesiac wife.

A forged check... a runs way wife... a curiously lazy lover... these tantalizing and elusive clues lead PERRY MASON and DELLA STREET to one of their most baffling cases ever—It all began when the first check for $2500 arrived. It was made out to Perry Mason and signed “Lola Faxon Allred” and it had been attached to a letter which wasn’t there.Then the noon mail came in with another check — same amount, same signature and the same aura of mystery.

Perry Mason and Della Street are writing love letters this time — to a girl they’ve never seen. In fact they don’t even know her name.

But they’ve seen a letter she wrote to a Lonely Hearts Magazine. According to her, she’s both attractive and an heiress, an heiress who’s tired of people who love her for her money...

According to Perry Mason, she’s lying. And there’s something phony about the Lonely Hearts business — including Mr. Robert Caddo who runs it. But there’s nothing phony about the beautiful corpse that almost puts Perry behind bars for life.

In this novelette Perry Mason clears his client, despite damning evidence in the victim’s lovenest, through the lipstick kiss impression on the dead man’s forehead.

While Perry Mason is enjoying a moonlit canoe ride, he admires a naked bathing beauty. Little does he know he'll soon be rescuing her and that next day he'll have to clear her of a jewlery-theft charge. But then she's suddenly charged again--this time with murder. It takes all of Perry's wiles, Della's insights, and Paul Drake's deft detecting to solve 'The Case of the Negligent Nymph'.

“What prominent lawyer received the mitten in front of his office building last night? Who was the mysterious blonde spitfire who swung one from the hip and left him groggy...?”

That gossip columnist knew that Perry Mason was the lawyer. But Mason himself didn’t know who the girl was... and he wanted to.

She had climbed down the fire escape from the Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development Company — right into Mason’s office on the floor below. After a story which neither believed, she ran away. And the next day Ed Garvin came to see the lawyer.

Garvin said he didn’t know the girl. He was just crazy about his new bride... but he did want Mason to find out whether or not he had two wives. He, himself, didn’t quite know.

Perry Mason takes the case that soon involves murder and reaches a climax in one of the most brilliant courtroom scenes of Mason’s career.

Perry Mason knew it was murder. But when the police got there it looked like suicide — except for the tall man in the tan-colored topcoat... and a most interesting fingerprint on the gun.

Mason was after a hit-and-run driver and he set a trap. Into the trap walked a girl with innocent blue eyes and wheat-colored hair. Then, within twenty-four hours, Mason realized that someone was after him, and that he was holding a great big bag.

At first Della Street and Paul Drake ribbed him about the girl, but it wasn’t funny when the police started building up a case not against the murderer, but against Perry Mason himself.

The D.A. was licking his chops. But Mason had other ideas. With a few breaks he could rip the D.A.’s case wide open — he hoped!

Perry Mason, world-famous lawyer and sleuth, keeps a lady in mink under wraps in...Perry Mason and Della Street were in the middle of a rare steak when the mink coat appeared in the hands of a puzzled restaurant proprietor.The coat belonged, he said, to a waitress who had just taken it on the him... and he didn’t mean food. Now what to do with the coat?Perry Mason examined the mink he decided there was more than a moth-eaten patch to meet the eye — particularly when the cops arrived...

This sparkling mystery novel reveals a sensational new discovery in the field of scientific criminal investigation...It all began with an auction. If Perry Mason hadn’t made a casual, five-dollar bid he wouldn’t have bought the personal effects of Helen Cadmus, missing secretary presumed a suicide...If the personal effects hadn’t turned out to be diaries and a photograph album, Benjamin Addicks wouldn’t have come into the picture...If Benjamin Addicks hadn’t been an eccentric millionaire, he wouldn’t have been conducting psychological experiments on gorillas...And that brings us to the most spine-chilling scene ever encountered in a Gardner mystery: Perry Mason creeping through a silent house, stalked by A MURDEROUS, GRINNING GORILLA!

Perry Mason refused to believe the proof against his client. The district attorney was too smug. The evidence was too good.

A dazzling new Perry Mason mystery in which a black eye, a bewildered cabby, a pile of junk and a body beautiful add up to one of the most intricate puzzles of Mason’s career.It started with a body. The body was alive, female, seductive, and Mrs. Sybil Harlan was convinced that it was taking her husband right out from under her eyes.Mason is in rare form as he tackles one of the most obscure and tantalizing courtroom problems he has ever faced.

People did not see eye to eye about Nadine Farr. Some called her sweet... some called her sour... some branded her a vicious murderess and blackmailer. But all agreed that she was a very good looking young woman, a real knockout.

Perry Mason reserved judgment and came up swinging on the count of ten in the most harrowing legal battles of his career.

First there was a corpse... but no corpus delicti. Then there was too much cyanide. Then Mason himself was accused of perjury.

Erle Stanley Gardner has contrived a brilliant puzzle for this 50th case of his famous lawyer-detective, and Perry Mason pulls out all the stops in a dazzling courtroom climax.

A recipe to delight every gourmet of mystery fiction...

Take a proxy fight and a series of mysterious phone calls from an unknown female who said her name was Rosalind.

Add a couple of guns and a very dead blonde in a bare hotel room.

Season with Perry Mason’s brilliant analytical mind... and some fast action by Della Street and Paul Drake.

Pop it all into the courtroom... and you will have a murder case that is almost too hot to handle. At least that is the way Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, felt about it.

It’s a sensational pièce de résistance that calls for whirlwind action by three of the best cooks in the business, Perry Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake.

It takes talent to kill two birds with one stone... but it takes genius (Erle Stanley Gardner variety) to make three bull’s-eyes with one arrow.

This Perry Mason mystery is a tantalizing triple-decker.

One threesome comprises three glamorous ladies — all long-legged models with ambitions that range from keeping the home fires burning to putting the home fires out.

Another trio is a far-from-pleasant collection of small metal objects called guns.

Finally, the favorite triumvirate of mystery readers around the world: Perry Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake. This is one of Mason’s most absorbing cases — meaning sensational action all the way, with a fabulous courtroom climax.

A Perry Mason Mystery... featuring the famous lawyer-detective in a bewildering case. Not one but TWO courtroom sessions — each with a different defendant — make this one of the most intriguing novels Erle Stanley Gardner has yet created.

It all begins with a minor automobile accident featuring a building contractor and a glamorous photographer’s model.

From then on it is a matter of snap decisions, snap judgments, and some telling snap-shots — one of them candid, and one of them fatal.

When Mason gets in the act, Hamilton Burger figures the D.A.’s office can make a killing of its own — and bring in Mason’s head on a platter!

Start on page one, play it to win, and you’ll be in on one of the most fabulous photo-finishes of Perry Mason’s career.

Perry Mason has cause to ponder the old adage “Like Father, like son” in this explosive drama of murder among California’s upper crust... featuring a small boy ho just loves guns — preferably those that go Bang!

The curtain rises on Mervin Selkirk’s scandalous divorce. Then, with the battle for custody of seven-year-old Robert still pending, Selkirk’s fiancée, Norda Allison, learns of some unfortunate qualities in her intended. Exit romance; enter letters — crude, threatening ones addressed to Norda.

That’s when Selkirk’s ex-wife and her second husband come on stage, his powerful father lurks behind scenes, and Perry Mason makes his entrance as star in a daring — and deadly — role.