Count Of 9, The

Description: Erle Stanley Gardner was not just the creator of PERRY MASON - at the time of his death, he was the best-selling American author of all time, with hundreds of millions of books in print, including the 29 cases of the brash, irresistible detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. Gardner was also one of the most ingenious plot-spinners in the field, coming up with stunning twists and reveals... and THE COUNT OF 9 is Gardner at his twistiest. Hired to protect the treasures of a globe-trotting adventurer, Bertha and Donald confront an impossible crime: how could anything be smuggled out of a dinner party - least of all a 6-foot-long blowgun - when the guests were X-rayed coming and going? But that's nothing compared to the crime they face next: AN IMPOSSIBLE MURDER...

Review: "This smooth and easy entry in [Gardner's] Cool and Lam detective series, now reissued with a classic--but brand new--cover by legendary paperback artist Robert McGinnis." --Publishers Weekly

Author Biography: One of the best-selling authors of all time, Erle Stanley Gardner's greatest creations include crusading attorney Perry Mason (star of more than eighty novels, a TV series and TV movies) and the hardboiled detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, who appeared in more than two dozen adventures. An attorney himself, Gardner also founded the Court of Last Resort, a group that investigated criminal cases they believed had ended in wrong convictions.