In 1948, the world’s most popular mystery writer mobilized an army of amateur sleuths to help solve a real-life murder. What could go wrong?

Eighty years ago, Erle Stanley Gardner, author of the Perry Mason novels, was the most widely read living author on the planet. Fascinated by real-life police work, Gardner accepted a unique invitation—an opportunity to be on the inside of a homicide investigation from the start, working to solve the crime—that brought him to Boulder, Colorado, seventy-two hours after the rape and murder of an eighteen-year-old college student.

What followed was a stunning display of rabid reporting and wayward amateur sleuthing. Gardner and his team of celebrated crime experts encouraged the public to search for clues at the crime scene and bring suspected evidence to them. They gained astonishing access to the prime suspect after his arrest, setting the stage for a sensational trial. Many questions remained unanswered, altering the course of Gardner’s future detective work as he turned his attention from catching killers to challenging flaws in the justice system.

Based on extensive archival research, Amateur Hour is the true story of a brutal crime and its aftermath. It’s also a cautionary tale about the gulf between the tidy narratives of crime fiction and the uncertainties of a real murder mystery, as relevant in today’s landscape of true crime podcasts as it was in 1948.