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To anyone who has followed his career, Ray Schindler was the greatest detective of the mid-twentieth century. He was a pioneer in scientific detection before modern forensic science, and he handled more than 10,000 cases covering almost every crime recorded on the police blotter.
Rupert Hughes acts as a faithful Dr. Watson to Schindler's Holmes, and guides us from case to case, watching a man who can't be excited, can't be stampeded , and can't be frightened; a man who matches ingenuity of crime with an even greater mental resourcefulness; a man who has a dogged determination and a big fighting heart.
Ray Schindler's biography is the story of a great investigator, of a life that is packed with exciting adventures, and of criminals who are outwitted, out-fought, and defeated. Mere fictional detective stories pale in comparison to the real life drama inherent in every one of Ray Schindler's cases.
About the author
Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) is the master of American mystery fiction. A civil rights lawyer, his mysteries contain intricate, ever-twisting plots. Challenging and full of surprises, these are whodunits in the best tradition. He wrote 146 books, 85 of which feature Perry Mason. The fictional attorney became the basis of a number of television series (reputedly 271 episodes), and achieved an enviable record for winning his cases. Erle Stanley Gardner has an amazing sales record: at the height of his popularity in the mid-1960s he was selling an average of 26,000 copies of his novels a day, making him one of the world's best selling author's, easily outstripping at the time Agatha Christie and Barbara Cartland combined. Born in Malden, Massachusetts, Gardner went on to attend Law School in Indiana, but this only lasted for around a month, being suspended because of various distractions to his studies, especially boxing. He moved to California and became a self-taught attorney before opening his own law office. However, being bored with this he ended up working in sales for five years. Returning to the law in 1921, he created another law firm, but again was not really enthusiastic, other than when acting as a trial lawyer. Writing was his great passion and eventually he gave up the law completely to pursue a full time writing career. In this he was prodigious, setting himself a target of 66,000 words per week. His output under various pseudonyms, as well as his own, went wider than Perry Mason and also extended to non-fiction. He became an expert on the early Mexican exploitation of California. In later life, law did play a significant part in his life once again. With friends, he set up what they termed 'The Court of Last Resort', aimed at investigating and attempting to reverse what they perceived as miscarriages of justice because of poor legal representation, or evidential problems. Gardner himself once wrote: 'I want to make my hero a fighter, not by having him be ruthless to women and underlings, but by creating a character who, with infinite patience jockeys his enemies into a position where he can deliver one good knockout punch.'
Summary
The fascinating cases of real-life detective Rupert Schindler details 25 cases he solved during the Thirties and Forties. It provides fascinating insights on both Schindler and the era during which he was solving crimes.
