Stop the Presses!

Nero Wolfe #11

eBook, 346 pages

English language

Published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road.

ASIN:
B01AVTU67Q
3 stars (1 review)

There are few people Nero Wolfe respects, and Lon Cohen of the New York Gazette is one of them. So when Cohen asks for a favor, the famously brilliant—and notoriously lazy—detective is inclined to listen. According to Cohen, someone wants to kill the Gazette’s gossip columnist, Cameron Clay. Death threats are a regular hazard for Clay, who’s hurled insults and accusations at every bold-faced name in the five boroughs. But the latest threats have carried a more sinister tone.

The columnist has narrowed his potential killers down to five people: an egomaniacal developer, a disgraced cop, a corrupt councilman, a sleazy lawyer, and his own ex-wife. But when Clay turns up dead, the cops deem it a suicide. The bigwigs at the Gazette don’t agree, so they retain Wolfe and his indefatigable assistant, Archie Goodwin, to figure out which of the suspects had the mettle to pull the trigger.

1 edition

reviewed Stop the Presses!

Readable but not outstanding

3 stars

The Goldsborough Nero Wolfe books are a little controversial among serious Wolfe fans. I would never claim that they match up to Stout's work, but I have derived sufficient pleasure from them to keep reading them. After all, it is the only way to get new Wolfe stories, and I am a big Wolfe fan. This book is a case of Lon Cohen asking a favor of Wolfe, and as Wolfe has asked many favors of Lon in the past he feels bound to help out if he can. The Gazette has an acid-tongued gossip columinst who has made a lot of enemies. But 5 in particular have made threats that are deemed serious. Lon would like Wolfe to look into it, and maybe help to protect the columnist. And when said columnist turns up dead from a gunshot wound, suspicions abound. Yet the police insist that it was a …