dove il pachidermico Nero Wolfe dà il meglio di sé per scovare l'assassino, Soprattutto nel terzo racconto deve darsi da fare in fretta, pena l'impossibilità di accedere al suo studio: infatti l'assassino stavolta ha osato compiere un omicidio proprio nel mitico studio con le poltroncine di pelle gialla e la poltrona rossa.
Scritti con la consueta arguzia, anche i racconti brevi si leggono volentieri, Three short but extremely fun mysteries, The third story is just plain but the other two are mostly enjoyable because of the interplay between the regular cast of characters.
Вне зависимости от того, понравилась ли мне детективная составляющая, я всегда получаю огромное удовольствие от чтения книг о Ниро Вулфе и Арчи Гудвине!!!! Юмор sitelinkRex Stout просто превосходен!!!!!!!! As I continue to work my way through the Nero Wolfe series, I'm finding I'm not the biggest fan of the short story collections.
The format isn't the issue for the most part, Stout seems to save his weaker ideas for these smallerscale mysteries.
Ultimately, these were never intended to be read backtoback, and the formulaicness really starts to great when you get a triple dose of very similar scenes.
I think in the future, I'll just read one short story at a time between other books,
The third story, where a murder takes place in Wolfe's office and removes him from his comfort zone, rises above the other two, which mostly hinge on a cheap resolution before Stout immediately slams the door shut.
But by the time I got to that one, I
just wanted to be done with it,
This is the first time I've reviewed Rex Stout's series with Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
Let's begin with, it's so good thatyears after he wrote the first mystery Too Many Cooks, they're still being read and sold.
That makes me give itstars,
I'd give itas a mystery anyway, The characters are so iconic, Nero Wolfe is fat/of a ton but brilliant, He reads every day and remembers everything he reads, including the whole NY Times, He's modeled after Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes's smarter older brother, Both are extremely lazy and set in their routines, Basically, he only takes cases when he needs money,
Nero's partner is Archie Goodwin, his opposite in every way, He's a ladies' man, a man of action, who can repeat conversations verbatim for Wolfe, He does all the assignments Wolf doesn't want to do, He's a wisecracker whereas Wolfe is serious,
In this mystery, they have an orchid show at their brownstone apartment and someone gets murdered.
Worse, the police seal off their office, so their whole routine is disrupted, Of course, the murderer is the last person you suspect,
It was more fun listening to the audiobook, ably narrated by Michael Prichard, Don't miss it! In this trio of Nero Wolfe mysteries a gun grows wings, a horseman is "done in" during his morning ride, and someone has the audacity to strangle a young lady of Archie's recent acquaintance in Nero Wolfe's own office while Wolfe's guests are enjoying the great man's orchids.
Three winners from Rex Stout, You are guaranteed to be entertained and puzzled by any Nero Wolfe story by Stout, Three entertaining novellas first published collectively in, A visit to Nero Wolfe's brownstone on Westth Street in New York City is always enjoyable,
"The Gun With Wings"December:
Opera tenor Alberto Mion died four months previously.
The police have ruled the death a suicide, He was found in his soundproof studio with his gun next to the body, He had a throat injury that prevented him from performing, Six weeks prior to Mion's death, baritone Gifford James learned from his daughter Clara that Mion had seduced her, and he punched Mion in the neck out of anger.
Mion's wife was thinking of leaving him, Now the widow, Peggy Mion, and Frederick Weppler, the music critic for the Gazette, hire Wolfe to investigate Mion's death.
They want to start a new life together but need Wolfe to prove neither murdered Mion, For a,retainer Wolfe agrees to take on the case, The title comes from the fact that the gun keeps moving, There are several potential suspects but they are no match for Nero Wolfe, When the identity of the murderer is revealed it took me by surprise but made perfect sense when Wolfe explained how it was done.
"Bullet for One" July:
Industrial designer Sigmund Keyes enjoyed horseback riding most mornings.
That is until one day his horse emerged from the park with no rider and Keyes' body was found in a thicket near the path.
Five people who worked closely with him, . . Ferdinand Pohl, Frank Broadyke, Wayne Safford, Audrey Rooney, and Keyes' daughter Dorothy want to hire Wolfe to prove that sales agent Victor Talbott murdered Keyes.
Besides they are being harassed by the police and they want it to stop, Wolfe agrees to find the murderer, . . regardless of his / her identity, None of the six has an airtight alibi, A reenactment of the crime reveals the identity of the murderer, No real surprise but still an entertaining story,
"Disguise for Murder" September:
Wolfe has opened his home and the plant rooms for the Manhattan Flower Club and he is in a foul mood.
It seems it did not occur to the genius that there are women members, Archie slips downstairs to the office for a break from Wolfe and the Manhattan Flower Club only to be interrupted when a young woman enters after him and identifies herself as Cynthia Brown.
She tells him that she is a crook and this is just one of her aliases, She also tells him that five months ago a friend of hers, Doris Hatten, was murdered, She had seen the murderer entering Doris's apartment as she was leaving but didn't realize it at the time.
Now she just saw the murderer up in the plant rooms, She wants Wolfe's help. Archie has to go back and help Wolfe in the plant rooms but agrees to have Wolfe see her as soon as the guests leave.
As the guests are leaving Archie hears a woman scream, Mrs. Carlisle only wanted to take a peek at Wolfe's office and see the globe, Instead she found the body of Cynthia Brown who had been strangled, Of course the police are called, Wolfe and Inspector Cramer have had battles in the past but this may be the battle royal when Cramer orders Wolfe's office sealed.
It is a crime scene, Wolfe believes he knows who the murderer is, He is a genius. He sets a trap and Archie is the bait, The identity of the murderer caught me completely by surprise, Discounted No theme to the collection I picked this up on sale a few years ago, and when I changed kindles it wasn't marked as new, so I thought I'd already read it.
Some of the novella collections have a theme like holidays, this one does not, so they're just a nice mix.
Stout was better at the shorter form than many authors, he knew which shortcuts to take on exposition so you can get straight into the heart of the story.
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