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A midnight hit-and-run accident on a mountain road ... a tragic fatality ... the discovery of the missing car ... and Doug Selby, District Attorney of Madison City, finds himself not only up against a most involved case but in the hottest spot of his career. Featuring an absorbing cast of supporting characters, including genial Sheriff Rex Brandon, the sly, suave A.B. Carr, a strange couple from New Orleans who should be cooperative but aren't, and Inez Stapleton, Madison City's only woman show more lawyer, who finds the going tough when she tries to be both friend and foe of Doug Selby. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Over the years I've probably read most of the books in Gardner's long Perry Mason series, but I'm not sure I've read any others before in his shorter, less famous D.A. series. Doug Selby, a D.A. in rural Southern California, is in effect a clone of Perry Mason but working the other side of the aisle: he's a babe magnet of fundamental decency who's not averse to shaving the edges of the law if the result justifies it. In this book he sorts out a complicated entanglement involving an inheritance, murder, a marriage that should never have been, and more. As always with Gardner, it's a fast, fun read that doesn't leave much of an impression behind it.
Amazing how fast one can read when one picks the right books. This was a fun little read. I rate it as just below Agatha Christie, about the Lillian Jackson Braun level.
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#JustTheFacts2019Gold
59 works; 1 member
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Author Information
877+ Works 30,758 Members
Mystery writer Erle Gardner was born on July 17, 1889 in Malden, Massachusetts. In 1902, he had moved to Oroville, CA. His parents could not afford to send a second son to college, so he worked in a legal office as a clerk reading law. He spent a short time at Valparaiso University in Indiana but had to drop out because of an illegal boxing show more exhibition. He continued to travel throughout California and read law at several law offices and finally passed the bar in 1911, at the age of 21. He married Natalie Francis Beatrice Talbert on April 9, 1912. In 1916, he formed the Law Firm of Orr and Gardner in Venture, CA. Gardner used many pseudonyms such as Charles Green, Kyle Corning and Grant Holiday. While working as an attorney, he began writing fiction. In 1921, "Nellie's Naughty Nighty" was published in the pulp magazine Breezy Stories. He had a goal of writing 100,000 words a month and would sometimes write two or more stories a day. In 1923, "The Shrieking Skeleton" was sold to the Black Mask Magazine. In the 1930's, Gardner had two manuscripts that were rejected and than "rediscovered" by Thayer Hobson, the president of the William Morrow Publishing Company, and rewritten as courtroom mysteries. During this process, the character Perry Mason was born. In 1933, the first Perry Mason book was written, "The Case of the Velvet Claws." The next one was entitled "The Case of the Sulky Girl" and they were followed by more than eighty additional Mason mysteries. Gardner died on March 11, 1970. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- The D. A. Cooks a Goose
- Original publication date
- 1942
- People/Characters
- Doug Selby
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 89
- Popularity
- 360,835
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.44)
- Languages
- English, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 16
