The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito (1943) – A wealthy prospector is camping in his own back yard, someone tries to poison Perry and Della, Paul Drake poses as a drunken prospector, and the clue to the murder is the sound of a mosquito flying in lazy circles.The death of his wife leaves Banning Clarke, a former successful prospector turned mining magnate, the prey of a host of human predators, including his calculating mother-in-law, and it is up to Perry Mason to keep things on the up and up. Reprint. Split from:Anthology containing: 17. The Case of the Silent Partner18. The Case of the Haunted Husband19. The Case of the Empty Tin20. The Case of the Drowning Duck21. The Case of the Careless Kitten22. The Case of the Buried Clock23. The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito24. The Case of the Crooked Candle

The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde (1944) – A beautiful blonde gets a fist in the eye from her employer's son, and Mason must defend her when her roommate is murdered.

The Case of the Perjured Parrot (1939) – One of Perry Mason's trademarks is his ability, in court, to switch the physical evidence in a case. He generally does this with guns or bullets, and it confuses the jury, to his client's advantage. In this case, Perry offers a coroner's inquest two parrots, one of which swore like a muleskinner and was found near the body of a millionaire hermit who had been murdered. "This early Perry Mason is uncommonly full of detection, and the games played in it with parrots do not detract from plausibility. Denouement not huddled--all in all, a model in his special genre." In the television production of "The Case of the Perjured Parrot," the parrot was voiced by Mel Blanc.Did Wealthy Fremont Sabin divorce his wife before his untimely death? That’s the multimillion-dollar question. And the right answer will mean a windfall for either the deal man’s angry son or headstrong widow. Each has accused the other of destroying Sabin’s will –and murdering Sabin. But with no document declaring to whom the affable eccentric intended to leave his fortune, Perry Mason faces a prickly puzzle. Even more puzzling, however, is the talking parrot. Casanova was Fremon Sabin’s beloved pet. But the bird found at the crime scene proves to be a foul-mouthed impostor. Suffice it to say that more than a few feathers will be ruffled as Mason sets out to clip a clever killer’s wings.The Case of the Perjured Parrot (1939) is a Perry Mason tale, set not in the desert, but in a mountain forest. But it has another hermit-like nature-lover, and an emphasis on reading clues from a murder scene to reconstruct a crime. These clues are indoors at a fishing cabin, not outside, however, making a further difference from the desert tales. Some of this detection is done not by Perry Mason, but by a country sheriff who is good at "reading trail". This Sheriff anticipates Gardner's later series character Sheriff Bill Eldon. The long opening (Chapters 1-5) tells a pleasantly elaborate tale, with a great flow of story and several nice twists and turns. The solution (Chapters 12-14) is none too surprising, and the novel does not excel therefore as a puzzle plot mystery. Still, the solution's twists are decent, and continue both the deductions from crime scene clues and the book's pleasing flood of story. The Case of the Perjured Parrot consists of one long murder investigation, of a single murder. It is more unified than many Gardner books. There is no preliminary mystery subplot in the opening chapters either: Perry Mason starts investigating the murder in the first chapter. Perry works less to defend a single client in this tale, and more purely as a detective, as well. The Case of the Perjured Parrot, like The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito, has a bit of high technology in it. Gardner perhaps had some artistic association between nature settings and technology, in his story-creation process. 

Arthur Cartwright's official complaint about a neighbor's noisy dog leads Perry Mason and his associates into a case involving a poisoned police dog, a missing wife, and murder.

Thanks to a bungled robbery at a fancy hotel, the already-married Eva Griffin has been caught in the company of a prominent congressman. To protect the politico, Eva’s ready to pay the editor of a sleazy tabloid his hush money. But Perry Mason has other plans. He tracks down the phantom fat cat who secretly runs the blackmailing tabloid—only to discover a shocking scoop. By the time Mason’s comely client finally comes clean, her husband has taken a bullet in the heart. Now Perry Mason has two choices: represent the cunning widow in her wrangle for the dead man’s money—or take the rap for murder.

The Case of the Lucky Loser (1957) – Mason defends a man previously convicted of killing a man with an automobile while intoxicated. When the body is found to have been killed with a gun, Mason argues double jeopardy as a plea, but eventually clears his client of all crimes.The voice on the phone was young and silky. The woman it belonged to touched something soft in Perry Mason's cool, legalistic mind. The offer she made was too intriguing to pass up. But what began as a request for a simple courtroom visit turned into an intrigue of baffling complexity -- as well as one of the most cleverly rigged frame-ups of Perry's career. Its a case of a family blessed with millions and, riddled with scandal, a case of accidental manslaughter that explodes into a charge of airtight murder, a case of a corpse dying not once, but twice. To save his client, Perry will have to break all the rules-and more than one law.

GUN OVERBOARD When Matilda Benson solicits the help of Perry Mason, her request seems simple enough: cruise to a gambling ship moored just beyond the twelve-mile limit and buy back the IOUs signed by Miss Benson's niece. But after Mason reaches the floating casino, he discovers problems aplenty--most notably the ship's owner with a bullet hole through his head. Strangely enough, Matilda and her niece are also on board that night . . . when someone tosses a gun over the railing. Does Perry Mason's client have something to hide? With the support of his trusty secretary, Della Street, and the ever-helpful Paul Drake, Mason dives into an ocean of menace.

SHE PLAYED THE ODDS -- AND LOST! When the beautiful girlfriend of a notorious gangster vanishes, the last man to be seen with her needs an alibi -- and fast. Enter Donald Lam of the Cool & Lam detective agency. Donald tracks down the two women with whom his client claims to have spent the night and the client declares the case closed. But it's not. Something about his client's story doesn't add up, and Donald can't resist the temptation to keep digging. Before he knows it, he's dug up connections to a mining scam, an illegal casino, and a double homicide -- plus an opportunity for an enterprising private eye to make a small fortune, if he can just stay alive long enough to cash in on it!