A crime thriller starring the sleuthing lawyer portrayed in the HBO limited series—from the Edgar Award–winning "kingpin among the mystery writers" ( The New York Times) . Stewart Bedford is willing to cooperate with a blackmailer to protect his beloved wife. But when he wakes up in a daze to find the man shot dead with Bedford's gun and his blond escort missing, he'll need some help from defense lawyer Perry Mason . . . This mystery is part of Edgar Award–winning author Erle Stanley Gardner's classic, long-running Perry Mason series, which has sold three hundred million copies and serves as the inspiration for the HBO show starring Matthew Rhys and Tatiana Maslany.