“Here’s the gun I’m not going to use to kill my husband.” That’s what she said. But he was killed, and with that gun, or with one just like it... and Archie Goodwin had tampered with the gun himself.

When orchid nurse Theodore Horstmann leaves the brownstone indefinitely to tend to his sick mother, Nero Wolfe goes out — in the snow and on foot — into the raging wilds of Westchester to find a replacement. He and Archie find a corpse in the greenhouse, as well.

The most engaging new detective of the year — Tecumseh Fox! Meet him in a neatly dovetailed mystery which is right up to the unbeatable standard of Rex Stout’s best.Two shots in the dark and a silent figure sprawled on the floor of Ridley Thorpe’s bungalow hideaway start thins mystery of a millionaire’s death in which passion spin the plot through he lanes and highways of New York’s suburbia.You will be hearing a lot more about Tecumseh Fox in the future, so you will do well to make his acquaintance right now. Maybe you will agree with the local police officials in the story who think the name most appropriate to the man.

It was preposterously inconvenient. The outer door was locked as usual, yet there she lay — on Nero Wolfe’s carpet, in Nero Wolfe’s office, strangled by Nero Wolfe’s own necktie!

a book to remember...In this book you will investigate crime with such Famous Detectives asPerry MasonNero WolfeEllery Queenand read stories of detection and suspense by such Famous Mystery Writers asAgatha ChristieJohn Dickson CarrGeorge Harmon CoxeCharlotte ArmstrongHugh Pentecostand be surprised at tales of mystery and crime by such Famous Literary Figures asW. Somerset MaughamBen Hecht,John Van DrutenA book to remember, a book to read and reread — a book to treasure and keep permanently in your library...

In this story Nero Wolfe investigates the murders of Ben Jensen, a well-connected publisher.

Nero Wolfe again exposes a communist-murderer in a case both the FBI and the police try to keep hushed. Two female suspects smack it out in Wolfe’s office and one drunken woman pats him on the head after pouring scotch in his beer. The feds and cops try to raise hell when they learn that Wolfe offers to “bribe” a suspect.

“I want you to get a snake out of my house. Out of my family.” Thus spoke millionaire Otis Jarrell, offering Nero Wolfe ten thousand dollars in cash as a retainer. If it hadn’t just happened that Jarrell called on Wolfe during a time when relations between the great detective and his faithful assistant Archie Goodwin were less cordial than usual, Archie, victim of Wolfe’s spite, would not have found himself posing as secretary to Jarrell. But it did so happen, and as a result Archie became part of the Jarrell menage in the twenty-room duplex penthouse on Fifth Avenue. Here he met the “snake” — Jarrell’s handsome, charming daughter-in-law — as well as an assortment of other ladies and gentlemen, including a pretty young girl who danced well and wrote poetry, a lazy brother-in-law who cheerfully lost other people’s money on horses, and an almost too efficient stenographer named Nora. When Archie found Jarrell’s former secretary face down on the floor, with a .38-bullet hole in back of his head, he knew indeed that there was a snake somewhere. The story of how he and Nero Wolfe identified and caught that reptile is herewith set down in Archie’s own lively words.

Nero Wolfe agreed to cook the Ambassador’s trout — not to catch the diplomat’s killer.