It was in 1976 that I wrote The Ehrengraf Defense, introducing a dapper gentleman with a highly idiosyncratic approach to the practice of criminal law. My agent sent the story to Frederic Dannay, one of two cousins who constituted the writing team of Ellery Queen. Fred edited Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine as well, and loved the story; he saw Martin H. Ehrengraf as a lineal descendant of Randolph Mason, the creation of Melville Davisson Post. (Since I’d never heard of Post’s stories, let alone read them, I doubt he was my inspiration. Indeed, the character was entirely my idea—although I did lift a plot element from Fletcher Flora.) Fred wanted more Ehrengraf stories, and over time I wrote a total of ten of them. Most of them made their first appearance in EQMM, and proved popular with readers—and especially with members of the legal profession. Make of that what you will.

When I finished writing The Ehrengraf Defense in 1976, I knew I had found a character I’d like to revisit. But it was Frederic Dannay’s immediate enthusiasm for Ehrengraf that made me write one story after another about the diminutive attorney. Fred, of course, was one of the pair of cousins who wrote the Ellery Queen mysteries, and it was Fred who edited Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and he snapped up the stories as quickly as I wrote them. Ehrengraf’s debut grew out of a plot device; in the course of my writing the story, Martin Ehrengraf came into being. In his second appearance, we see him more fully realized, tailoring his approach to the case to suit circumstances, and altering them to his purposes. “The Ehrengraf Presumption. Any client of Martin H. Ehrengraf is presumed byEhrengraf gto be innocent, which presumption is invariably confirmed in due course, the preconceptions of the client himself notwithstanding.” Words to live by…

This, the fifth story about Martin H. Ehrengraf, presents the criminous criminal lawyer with a different sort of problem. He’s engaged to defend a man who anticipates being charged with homicide. But no one has been murdered. Yet. In the beleaguered but resourceful Ethan Crowe, Ehrengraf has a client who sees the wisdom of hedging his bets before he places them. In Terence Reginald Mayhew, the little lawyer has an adversary with the terrifying power of madness housed in the body of a housebound cripple. Ehrengraf, a great fan of poetry, has cited William Blake and Winthrop Mackworth Praed in earlier stories; in Riposte he finds the opportunity to quote two of his favorites, Christopher Smart and Thomas Hood.

The Ehrengraf Affirmation is the ninth of ten stories about the little lawyer whose chief article of faith is the simon-pure innocence of his clients. Of course that leap of faith is more of a challenge with some clients than others. The use of written affirmations is a key element in Write For Your Life, the interactional seminar for writers that I presented around the country in the mid 1980s. It’s not hard to see how this story grew out of that experience…

The Ehrengraf Fandango is the twelfth story featuring Margtin Ehrengraf, the famously criminous criminal lawyer. Ehrengraf, sustained by the presumption that any client of his is perforce innocent, somehow manages to free his clients without ever needing to appear in a courtroom. When LB ePublished the other eleven stories as Kindle Select titles, he held off on Fandango, to give Subterranean Press' edition of Defender of the Innocent an early lead; for the same reason, he held back Fandango pending its inclusion in the long-delayed collection Buffalo Noir, published by Akashic Books. Ehrengraf fans and followers have the option of buying the ebook or print edition of Defender of the Innocent, containing all 12 stories, Fandango included. But if yu've already read the other eleven stories, and want to buy Fandango by itself—or if you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber and want to read it for free—now's your chance. Throughout the Ehrengraf saga, it's been evident to some perceptive readers that the dapper little lawyer lives and works in Buffalo. This is abundantly clear in Fandango. Still, readers are cautioned against assuming any connection between Martin Ehrengraf and a real-life Buffalo criminal defense attorney who was a classmate of LB's at Bennett High School as well as a brother in Upsilon Lambda Phi fraternity. Any similarity is purely coincidental. The Ehrengraf Fandango was nominated in 2015 for a Shamus Award for Best Private Eye short story. This was a stretch, as Ehrengraf is not a private eye but an attorney. As the story didn't win, we can let it go at that, can't we?