The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith

Introduction

Dear Reader:

Erle Stanley Gardner probably invented more series detectives and criminals than any other writer in the mystery field. Foremost, of course, is his lawyer-detective, Perry Mason, the best-selling fictional sleuth in the history of American publishing. Other Gardner creations include Señor Arnaz de Lobo, professional soldier of fortune; Sidney Zoom and his police dog; the suave and sinister Patent Leather Kid; the firm of Small, Weston & Burke; Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook (one of Gardner’s personal favorites); Whispering Sands; Speed Dash, a human fly with a photographic memory (Gardner’s earliest series character); Major Brane, freelance secret-service man; El Paisano, who could see in the dark; Larkin, a juggler who used only a billiard cue as his weapon; Black Barr, a two-gun Western avenger; Ken Corning, the slick lawyer who antedated Perry Mason; Hard Rock Hogan; Fong Dei; Crowder; Rapp; Skarle — all of whom appeared in pulp magazines and were followed by the hardcover-book protagonists, D.A. Douglas Selby, Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, Sheriff Bill Eldon, and, of course, the one and only Perry Mason.

Of the many wood-pulp characters the most popular undoubtedly was Lester Leith, the Robin Hood of detectives who solved baffling mysteries in order to crack down on cracksmen. Instead of robbing the rich to help the poor, Lester Leith robbed the crooks “of their ill-gotten spoils” and gave the proceeds to deserving charities — less “20 percent for costs of collection.”

Lester Leith was, in Gardner’s words, “a typical character of the pulps, and written for the pulps.” He was light-fingered and lightning-witted, a “dapper, ingenious chap” gifted with “sheer mental agility.” So far as we have been able to check, Leith was born in print some time in 1929. During the next ten years Mr. Gardner wrote more than 60 novelets about his criminologist-criminal. After 1939 the debonair young clubman appeared less frequently — about one dozen more exploits were added to the saga. So it can be estimated, with reasonable accuracy, that Lester Leith’s larcenous career totaled approximately 75 adventures.

Now, the lean, languid Lester was no piker. He was seldom interested in picayune pirating. The mysteries which caught his fancy were usually loaded with loot. It would be entirely on the modest side to calculate his average “take” at $100,000 per caper. This means that Leith’s life of detection and crime “earned” him a cool gross of $7,500,000 and an equally cool net of $1,500,000. Not bad for a decade-plus of buccaneering in the depression years of the 1930s!

Lester Leith is pure nostalgia — and great fun. The plots are imaginative, sparkling, audacious. To paraphrase Anthony Boucher’s statement about another American detective: “We envy anyone who here discovers the amazing Lester Leith for the first time.”

Ellery Queen