Nothing can be written about the field of legal suspense fiction without paying homage to the late, great Erle Stanley Gardner.

Edgar winner, prolific author, attorney, mad adventurer, the man teased and entertained his readers with over one hundred novels. Like any writer, like us, he suffered from occasional bouts of doubt about his series, and would vow to continue the “smash-bang action,” without resorting too heavily on a formula.

However, a study of Gardner’s novels by critic Russel B. Nye (The Unembarrassed Muse, Dial 1970) did expose a pattern. Nye called Gardner’s novels as formal as Japanese Noh drama. He described fairly rigid plot points:  Attorney Perry Mason’s case is introduced. Mason and his crew investigate. Mason’s client is accused of a crime. Further investigations ensue. Then the trial begins. In a courtroom coup, Mason introduces new evidence and often elicits a confession from the lawbreaker.

And then came the celebratory moment we always enjoyed so much: Della, Paul and Perry went out for martinis and steak.

When we began our legal-suspense series, our primary goal was to get to that mythical moment, where the drinks got poured, and the beef and salad showed up looking tasty after the adjournment of yet another successful case.

But unfortunately, we agonize over plot. We have never stumbled upon a formula we can’t destroy, kind of like recipes, which neither one of us can follow. Wrung out by the process, we even forget to celebrate finishing sometimes.

However, our protagonist, Nina Reilly, shares certain Perry Mason characteristics. She takes risks for her clients. She looks for justice in some of the wrong places. If only all her clients, like Perry’s, were innocent.

Like Erle Stanley Gardner, we’ve fielded complaints about the foul language some of our characters use. When he wrote as A. A. Fair, Bertha Cool got pretty salty. When we write certain characters, they talk rough and act tough, too. How else can you bring in a contemporary tone? Some may object. Some may always object.

We’ve incorporated some of Pam’s experiences as an attorney/sole-practitioner up in South Lake Tahoe. Gardner stole from his own life, too. He took more literally from some of his cases; we steal carefully and fancifully, aware that these days anything too closely resembling a real event might come back to haunt in civil court.

But some moments insist on inserting themselves into our fiction: the time one of Pam’s clients stuck a shotgun through the door and waved it around the reception area without revealing his/her face, the time her client, a skier, wrapped himself around a tree at a major ski resort and blamed the resort for a badly-situated tree.

Yep. We wrote about those times.

We’ve incorporated our real-life children, using incidents from their lives to mess-up Nina’s son’s life. We’ve used Pam’s old office, her old house up at Tahoe, our own gambling, skiing, boating mishaps, etcetera. We’ve also exploited our shared experiences as parents, mistake-makers, silent judges, and ambitious writers.

Mom collected ever novel written by Gardner. She also collected every novel by Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, and perhaps most telling in terms of our own writing experience, the cousins who were Ellery Queen.

We were raised to admire collaboration and stories with mystery, crime, and questions about how justice will out.

Today, we’ll remember to celebrate. We raise our pens, and our martini glasses, in homage to the greats, and in honor of this year’s Edgar Allan Poe Award nominees and winners.