The D.A. Goes to Trial
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A homeless man's corpse sends a California D.A. down a twisted path in this classic hard-boiled mystery from the author of the Perry Mason series. "The bestselling author of the century . . . a master storyteller." —The New York Times District Attorney Doug Selby's latest trouble begins when the battered corpse of a vagabond is found near the railroad in Madison County. The coroner suspects he was struck by a train. Searching the dead man's wallet, they discover he had a wealthy brother in Phoenix. But who was the dead man? And how did he make it to the train tracks. . . ? Meanwhile, a neighboring city needs Doug's help. A bookkeeper named John Burke has vanished, potentially with funds stolen from his employer. Burke's neighbors report seeing a drifter in the alley near their house. And when Selby and Sheriff Rex Brandon speak to Burke's employer, they discover Burke wired him from Phoenix . . . Selby thinks he has found two threads that will tie together neatly in a bow, but the more he investigates, the more he is left in knots. Originally published in 1940.
Erle Stanley Gardner
Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) was a prolific American author best known for his works centered on the lawyer-detective Perry Mason. At the time of his death in March of 1970, in Ventura, California, Gardner was “the most widely read of all American writers” and “the most widely translated author in the world,” according to social historian Russell Nye. The first Perry Mason novel, The Case of The Velvet Claws, published in 1933, had sold twenty-eight million copies in its first fifteen years. In the mid-1950s, the Perry Mason novels were selling at the rate of twenty thousand copies a day. There have been six motion pictures based on his work and the hugely popular Perry Mason television series starring Raymond Burr, which aired for nine years and 271 episodes.
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