Rich business man Mr Gordon has many enemies and a family that wouldn't miss him if he dropped dead. Someone hires a hitman to kill him and it is carried out in such a way to frame Gordon's secretary Della Street. When Della is accused of the murder, Perry mason resigns his position as judge to defend her and employs the son of his old colleague, Paul Drake, the act as private investigator on the case.

A sister is accused of killing a priest with whom she may have been romantically involved.

A comedian hatches a great joke: rig a fake killing live on TV. He takes a gun with blanks, and shoots his accomplice during a talk show. Happy that his joke has been successful, he walks away. His accomplice is really dead, however, and nearly a million viewers saw him pull the trigger.

An old flame of Mason's is one of those being considered to fill a vacated government position. Now, her husband's approached by a man who says he knows his wife's secret and that if this secret should ever get out, her appointment might not push through. So, he offers to sell the information he has to him. So, when he goes to him, he finds him dead, and he is arrested for the crime and placed on trial, and Perry's asked to defend him. And Perry also suspects that the dead was hired by one of his friend's friends to steal the evidence of her secret so that they could expose it and sabotage her appointment, and in all likelihood is the killer.

Jordan White, a publisher friend of Perry, is called to a hotel where a guest, famous horror writer David Hall, has cleared out the hotel for a weekend and has called his "friends" - an actress, a fortune-teller, David's private assistant and the two remaining staff at the hotel to discuss business. They have come to the hotel as all of them are going to sue David over his new book - "The Resort" which characters are obviously based on Jordan and the guests. A practical joker, David plays tricks on them until he is thrown from the high tower of the hotel where Susan Warrenfield, the manager and owner of the hotel sees the fall and then Jordan at the tower causing the police to arrest Jordan. While Perry and Della try to solve the main mystery, Paul tries to find out who is trying to scare Susan away from the hotel. Could it really be a ghost or a more earthy visitor?...