born July 17, 1889, Malden, Mass., U.S.
died March 11, 1970, Temecula, Calif.
U.S. detective novelist.
He dropped out of college and was admitted to the California bar after three years as a law-firm typist. While practicing trial law, he wrote pulp fiction, basing the courtroom scenes and brilliant legal maneuvers on his own tactics. He gave up law following the success in 1933 of The Case of the Velvet Claws and The Case of the Sulky Girl , his first novels featuring the lawyer-detective Perry Mason. Eighty Perry Mason novels followed. He also wrote two other series of detective stories, one under the pseudonym A.A. Fair.