In Rex Stout's novel, Too Many Clients, a man approaches Archie, introduces himself as the vice president of a large company and asks Archie to follow him to a certain address at a certain time that night, in order to determine whether or not he, the vice president, is being followed by someone e...
Three Nero Wolfe Mysteries1) The Next Witness - Confound it! Nero Wolfe is stuck sitting in court, waiting to be a witness for the prosecution along with Archie Goodwin. But it wasn't the perfumed woman he had to sit next to that made him get up and leave, even with the threat of being in contemp...
The anthology consists of three novellas. Invitation to Murder.A man who is entirely dependent on his uncle to provide for his living (at least he is honest about it) was worried that one of the three young women working for his wealthy relative his matrimonial plans for the latter which would pu...
The Red Box was the fourth of the Nero Wolfe novels and begins somewhat abruptly in the middle of the initial interview with Wolfe’s client. With a desperate need for a client, Archie connives with a potential client to get Wolfe to leave his house to travel down to a fashion firm several blocks ...
A hazing prank on a Harvard freshman sends a brilliant young man, Paul Chapin out on a high window ledge. His fall shatters his body but not his mind. It sobers the hazers and they vow to make it up to the cripple by atoning for it the rest of their lives. But pity can curdle and nurture resentme...
"Eeny Meeny Murder Mo"Bertha Aaron, the secretary to the Senior partner in a lawfirm comes to Wolfe's office because she suspects one of the other partners of colluding with an opposing client against the interests of the firm. Because the opposing client is involved in a divorce case, Archie kno...
Handsome Playboy Orrie Cather, one of Nero Wolfe's operatives, usually has women falling at his feet. But they usually don't fall all the way to dead. Has he set up Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's right-hand man to be the one to find her that way in her rosy bower, a love nest maintained by another man, ...
Curtains for Three was published in 1951 and featured three Nero Wolve novellas published from 1948-50. As usual, we’ll review the individual story and then include an overall rating for the book:"The Gun with Wings": The title sounds similar to a Father Brown story (”The Dagger with Wings”) but ...
This one's actually a twofer. In the first novella ('Black Orchids'), an obnoxious young gardener is murdered at a flower show, where Nero Wolfe just happens to be on hand, having made one of his once-in-a-blue-moon excursions out of doors to ogle the world's only black orchids, which are on disp...
Marko Vukcic is dead. Nero Wolfe is extremely displeased by the murder of his oldest and dearest friend, and is even more displeased when, after weeks of effort, he is unable to locate or identify the murderer. Marko, it seems, was involved in international intrigue in their native Montenegro, an...
I was excited about reading Nero Wolfe. Not only is he a classic detective, but a favorite writer, Philip Jose Farmer, admired Wolfe enough to include him in the Wold Newton family. Unfortunately, Fer-de-Lance was a disappointment, likely my first and last foray into the series. Not because o...
What is better than finding an unread title of a Nero Wolfe volume by Rex Stout? It's finding three, all consolidated into one volume entitled Three Doors To Death. The three novellas were published in magazines in the late '40's, but Stout's writing ability and clever plotting is as fresh as eve...
Nero Wolfe needs a case and fortunately a murder occurs right on the radio for Wolfe to solve. One of the guests on the Madeline Fraser radio program has been poisoned. At first it looks like the murderer may have killed the wrong person but Wolfe isn't so sure. So he offers the host, the station...
In Might as Well Be Dead, Wolfe is hired by a Nebraska businessman to find his son, Paul Herald. The older Herald had exiled his son eleven years earlier on the belief his son had stolen $11,000 from the business but had since learned that someone else committed the theft. He turns to Wolfe as a...
Under normal circumstances, a woman showing up on Wolfe's door looking for a place to stay would be unceremoniously bounced. But if the woman shows up when Wolfe and Archie are in the middle of a standoff, she may end up being escorted inside so Archie can use her to antagonize his employer. The ...
Another two-in-one book, like Black Orchids before it. This time, the unifying thread is not Wolfe's rare flora, but his work for the United States Army during World War II. In 'Not Quite Dead Enough', Archie, now a major and working in domestic counter-intelligence, is sent to recruit Wolfe's he...
Reading Please Pass the Guilt right after The Silent Speaker provided quite an interesting contrast. Both cases involve Archie and Wolfe drumming up business, but the times have changed in 25 years.In the first place, technoligically things are quite different. In, The Silent Speaker, recording c...
Nero goes to West Virginia for a gourmet dinner. If you can swallow that one impossible premise, and some overt racist language and stereotypes, then this book is enjoyable and a certain classic of the Wolfe series. It is hard to discuss this book without addressing how remarkably different the w...
Nero Wolfe's former client, Mr. Anthony D. Perry, President of Seaboard Products Corporation shows up with a problem. Miss Clara Fox, an employee and possibly more to Mr. Perry, is accused of stealing $30,000 from the company. Later that same day, Clara Fox herself shows up and wants to hire Wolf...
I read all, or almost all the Nero Wolfe mysteries when I was in junior high, having finished reading Nancy Drew. I found this title in a box of old paperbacks, and decided to re-visit the old brownstone on West 35th Street. Somehow, the edition I happen to have is a British printing - which wa...
In the early 2000s there was a show on A&E called A Nero Wolfe Mystery (or sometimes just, Nero Wolfe) starring Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton. I was a loyal watcher of the show, not only for the acting and writing, but also because of the general look of the show. The costumes and sets were a...
Rex Stout. Un tiempo para los actores secundariosLo cierto es que nunca había leído nada de Rex Stout. Y también: Nero Wolfe era uno de esos nombres que nos suenan, que creemos haber escuchado alguna vez, y cuyas portadas un poco pop habíamos visto alguna vez en los puestos de libros de ocasión. ...
I would not call this anthology shameless cash grab after Rex Stout's death; cash grab - yes, shameless - no. I will try to explain below. The anthology consists of three novellas: Bitter end.Wolfe's personal cook extraordinaire Fritz was sick, so the detective had to cook for himself with really...
The Golden Spiders finds Wolfe and Archie in ill-temper. Archie decides to admit a neighborhood boy who comes to Wolfe because of Wolfe’s antipathy to police and the fact that he saw a woman in a car apparently in trouble. Wolfe handles the boy well and agrees to help by tracing the plate of the ...