A young trial lawyer eager to escape from his rut in California, Erle Stanley Gardner in 1923 got the idea for his first successful series of short stories when he watched a human fly crawl up the face of his office building. That cliff-hanger was to turn, him into a writing man with results that are amusing to read about.
An old pro in the writing of murder MYSTERIES, ERLEM STANLEY GARDNER is the creator of one of the most widely read fictional characters in the English language. Perry Mason. Mr. Gardner broke into print as a contemporary of Dashiell Hammett and Carroll John Daly, and at our urging, he has written this amusing account of their early days.
Eleven women have been murdered by strangulation in metropolitan Boston since the summer of 1962, and none of these cases has been solved as this issue goes to press. Erle Stanley Gardner is a distinguished criminologist, lawyer, and authority on police work, in addition to being the creator of one of the most widely read fictional characters in the English language, Perry Mason. The Atlantic invited Mr. Gardner to come to Boston and set down his own impressions of this extraordinary series of crimes.
A widely read novelist whose avocation is criminology, ERLE STANLEY GARDNER believes that the strengthening of our parole system would be the most effective and least expensive method of controlling crime. Confining prisoners for excessive terms, he argues, is as bad as releasing them without further supervision.
THE most widely read living author of mystery fiction, whose total book sales have passed the 28-million mark, ERLE STANLEY GARDNER is an amateur of the outdoors. He is an archer, woodsman, and hunter, and his home at Rancho del Paisano at Temecula, California, is one of the most picturesque in the West.