She pulled herself out of the water and into a canoe and gasped, ‘I don’t know who you are … but you’d better paddle like hell!’ Flashlights appeared on the shore. Someone shouted ‘There she is!’ but Perry Mason was doing as he was told for a change, paddling into the night, with a strange girl, towards the hottest water he had ever been in.

By morning, Mason was in all the papers - wanted for robbery. By afternoon, he had a second client - in jail. Then murder arrived and he was precipitated into the tensest battle of his career.