Catching up on the best of 1934 - a review of Erle Stanley Gardner's "The Case of the Howling Dog"

I've watched much of the Raymond Burr serious, but this is the first Perry Mason book I've read. The book was on par with the series for sexism (secretary Della Street is a "girl"), but the racism quotient is higher (the Chinese cook is a "chink".) Perry in the book, as opposed to the TV series, is even more willing to skate near or cross over the line of the law for his client. And surprisingly, the murderer does not stand up and confess in the final dramatic courthouse scene ("And I'd got away with it, if it wasn't for those meddling kids and there crazy dog." Sorry, wrong series. But there is, as one can see by the title, a dog. Maybe more than one.) Paul Drake, in any incarnation of these tales, remains the essence of cool.