Part of Series
Perry Mason has no hesitation about defending penniless ex-salesman Albert Brogan against a charge of armed robbery. That's because nightclub hostess Inez Kaylor's testimony will guarantee that the accusations against the alleged hold-up man won't hold up in court. But when the hostess has the bad manners to stand Mason up instead of taking the stand, Perry's defense may not have a leg to stand on. Failure to find the AWOL witness in forty-eight hours could cost an innocent man his liberty and his life, when the prosecution serves up a shocking new charge of murder! But the high-tailing hostess has a host of her own secrets, and a cast of shady characters—from Los Angeles to Las Vegas—is determined to keep them (and her) hidden. It all adds up to a whirlwind working weekend for Mason: if he can't get the goods—and the girl—by Monday morning when the gavel falls, so will the ax...
Author
Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories who also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray, and Robert Parr. Innovative and restless in his nature, he was bored by the routine of legal practice, the only part of which he enjoyed was trial work and the development of trial strategy. In his spare time, he began to write for pulp magazines, which also fostered the early careers of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. He created many different series characters for the pulps, including the ingenious Lester Leith, a "gentleman thief" in the tradition of Raffles, and Ken Corning, a crusading lawyer who was the archetype of his most successful creation, the fictional lawyer and crime-solver Perry Mason, about whom he wrote more than eighty novels. With the success of Perry Mason, he gradually reduced his contributions to the pulp magazines, eventually withdrawing from the medium entirely, except for non-fiction articles on travel, Western history, and forensic science. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erle\_Sta...
