A crafty businessman arrives incognito in a small town, where he takes up residence at a cabin. Using another name he starts buying up property. When he is found dead in his mountain cabin there is no shortage of suspects. Amateur detective Gramps Wiggins has to piece together the clues.

Original typescript on paper (approximately 300 pages) of Erle Stanley Gardner's novel, The Case of the Smoking Chimney, published by William Morrow and Company in 1943. Includes extensive autograph additions, strikethroughs, annotations, and corrections. Also includes 19 pages of cancelled text. The novel features the second appearance of Gardner's character Gramps Wiggins and is set in a small rural California town.

In this innovative contribution to the field of environmental history, Stephen Mosley explores the devastating human and environmental costs of smoke pollution in the world’s first industrial city.