When we found Perry Mason, we called SEVEN! When we met the “D.A.” — Douglas Selby — we shouted ELEVEN! They’re both naturals — and though Perry Mason does not take part in this novel, it marks the appearance of Erle Stanley Gardner’s second famous mystery-story character — the fighting young D.A. of Madison City! The little clergyman had died — peacefully — in bed in the Madison Hotel. An overdose of sleeping powder! “Now listen, Doug, this is just a natural death, see?” the hotel proprietor said anxiously. But Douglas Selby, District Attorney, just elected on a reform ticket, suspected it was more than that, and sent for the clergyman’s wife. She said the dead man was not her husband — then Selby knew definitely something was wrong. So Doug found himself faced not only with a wily murderer, but with virulence from a hostile press and reluctant witnesses as well. Who was the little clergyman — why was he murdered — by whom? The fighting D.A. at last finds out, through methods entirely different from Perry Mason’s. But the Gardner technique, the pace and the excitement that have endeared Mason to thousands, are present every minute in this story of Douglas Selby

Take two luscious redheads... add green-eyed blonde, mysterious burglary, and a bewildered fiancée... stir in a good measure of that unscrupulous attorney Alphonse Baker Carr... season with murder, and no wonder... “You’ve got to break an egg to make an omelet,” said Doug Selby, D.A. of Madison County, and he only hoped it would be one that old A. B. C. couldn’t digest. Plenty was on the fire, and Selby knew the only way to solve the case and save his reputation was to act faster than he ever had before... That was when he went to call on A. B. C. Sylvia Martin and Sheriff Rex Brandon do yeoman service as Doug smashes through to bring his most perplexing case to a triumphant conclusion