The Case of the Careless Kitten

Perry Mason seeks the link between a poisoned kitten, a murdered man, and a mysterious voice from the past

Helen Kendal receives a mysterious phone call from her vanished uncle Franklin, long presumed dead, and he urges her to make contact with criminal defense attorney Perry Mason. Soon, she finds herself the main suspect in the murder of an unfamiliar man. Her kitten has just survived a poisoning attempt—as has her aunt Matilda, the woman who always maintained that Franklin was alive in spite of his disappearance. Though it’s clear that all these mysterious occurrences are connected, and that their connection will prove his client’s innocence, the links in the case are too obscure to be immediately recognized, even by Mason’s brilliantly deductive mind. Risking disbarment for his unorthodox methods, he endeavors to outwit the police and solve the puzzle himself, enlisting the help of his secretary Della Street, his private eye Paul Drake, and the unlikely but invaluable aid of a careless but very clever kitten in the process.

Reprinted for the first time in over twenty years, The Case of the Careless Kitten is one of the most highly praised cases in the iconic Perry Mason series, which need not be read in any particular order.

One of the best of the Perry Mason tales.”
—The New York Times

Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) was the best-selling American author of the twentieth century, mainly due to the enormous success of his Perry Mason series, which numbered more than 80 novels and inspired a half-dozen motion pictures, radio programs, and a long-running television series that starred Raymond Burr. Having begun his career as a pulp writer, Gardner brought a hard-boiled style and sensibility to the early Mason books, but gradually developed into a more classic detective story novelist, showing enough clues to allow the astute reader to solve the mystery. For more than a quarter of a century he wrote more than a million words a year under his own name and numerous pseudonyms, the most famous being A.A. Fair.

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