In "The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece", Perry is consulted by a young woman named Edna. Edna is worried about her uncle, Peter. She lives with him, and he's in the process of getting a divorce so he can remarry. His soon to be ex-wife is causing all kinds of trouble, though, claiming that Peter tried to kill her once in her sleep. Peter and Edna claim that he sleepwalks. Perry goes to the house with a doctor friend of his, who thinks Peter is putting on a big act as far as his nervousness goes. Perry's not sure what to think. There are, first of all, about a million people living in the house. He sends a bunch of them north to Santa Barbara, to keep an eye on the ex-wife to be, and he and the doctor spend the night. When they wake up in the morning, they discover Peter's half brother has been stabbed in his sleep. Uh oh. Even more interesting is the fact that Philip, the brother, swapped rooms the night before with Peter's shady business partner, Maddox. Everyone knew except for Peter. So was Maddox really the intended target? Why was his shady business partner and his lawyer staying at Peter's house, anyway? Were there no hotels in Los Angeles in 1936? I mean, I certainly wouldn't have given them a place to stay. At any rate. While I enjoyed the story, I must say I was disappointed with the editing on this particular copy of the book. I know they're reissues and they're done kind of on the cheap to make money, but my God. There were words missing, punctuation scattered randomly about or completely missing. It was a hot mess. Erle Stanley Gardner deserves better.
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