The Danger Zone and Other Stories

by Erle Stanley Gardner, Bill Pronzini

A NEW ERLE STANLEY GARDNER BOOK! Crippen & Landru is proud to publish a collection of never previously reprinted stories from pulps, slicks and digests by Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) the great creator of Perry Mason. Here we meet such Gardner characters as Snowy Shane, an unorthodox P.I.; Slicker Williams, an ex-convict who uses the tricks of crookery to rescue a damsel in distress; Major Copely Brane, a freelance diplomat; George Brokay, wealthy man-about-town, who becomes a gentleman burglar – with unanticipated results; and others who show Gardner’s mastery of unusual situations, lighting-paced prose, and ingenious gimmicks and plot twists. The Danger Zone is the 13th in the Crippen & Landru "Lost Classics" series. The collection is edited by the modern master of the private-eye story, Bill Pronzini. The cover illustration is by Juha Lindroos, and the Lost Classics design is by Deborah Miller.

250 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2004

About the author

Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories who also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray, and Robert Parr.

Innovative and restless in his nature, he was bored by the routine of legal practice, the only part of which he enjoyed was trial work and the development of trial strategy. In his spare time, he began to write for pulp magazines, which also fostered the early careers of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. He created many different series characters for the pulps, including the ingenious Lester Leith, a "gentleman thief" in the tradition of Raffles, and Ken Corning, a crusading lawyer who was the archetype of his most successful creation, the fictional lawyer and crime-solver Perry Mason, about whom he wrote more than eighty novels. With the success of Perry Mason, he gradually reduced his contributions to the pulp magazines, eventually withdrawing from the medium entirely, except for non-fiction articles on travel, Western history, and forensic science.

See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erle_Sta...

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of some of Erle Stanley Gardner's lesser known pulp heroes.

Erle Stanley Gardner is best known for creating Perry Mason, but he introduced dozens of series characters, many of which lasted only a few stories, but some lasted for years and years in the pulps. His success in the field is amazing. This is a little peek into some of the more obscure money makers for him.

Highly recommended for pulp fans.

[Carolyn Di Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of short stories by Erle Stanley Gardner has never been published together before. I LOVED it! I recently came across a story by this author in another compilation of pulp stories. I only thought of him as the guy who wrote the Perry Mason stuff. I was so pleased at the story that I sought out more and found this gem! After each story was over, I kept wanting MORE. I may have to try some of that Perry Mason stuff after all...hmmmm.....

Read this on a cold dark day and escape!

[Theunis Snyman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gardner was one of the most prolific writers of mysteries. He published close to 20 million words and created 49 detectives and adventurers. He is mostly known for his books about The lawyer Perry Mason, the P.I’s Donald Lam and Bertha Cool, the DA Doug Selby and the thief Lester Leith. This is a collection of some of his lesser known stories published in pulp magazines. I was impressed by the stories “Complete Design” and “Flight Into Disaster”. But overall the other stories did not impress me much. I prefer the stories about his better known detectives named above.

[Darius Ostrowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Geez, Erle Stanley Gardner was one quite prolific writer. In addition to his classic Perry Mason novels and Donald Lam / Bertha Cool private eye classics, he also found time to write many, many short stories for the pulp magazines at the time. Here we have a collection of some of these “lost classic” stories. Each one features a protagonist (not all are detectives, some are actually crooks) that never made it into a series, most have some sort of hook or gimmick that sets it apart from the run of the mill pulp stories. All of the stories were quite enjoyable, even though some of the twists were a bit outlandish and would never survive a series. Good fun.

[Lonny Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting characters

[Jeff J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short series written for the pulps. A bit uneven, and none are as good as the author’s Perry Mason books, but I appreciate Crippen & Landru for assembling this collection.

[Ashwin Dongre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection, just as good as you'd expect from ESG stories. However the title story is the slowest and most boring and the one I loved was "Hard As Nail", loved it a lot!

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of stories that were originally printed as pulp fiction are presented for the first time in book form.