Invitation to Murder

Rating:
Summary: Hard Boiled Detectives in a Drawing Room Mystery
Review: One of the nice features of the Nero Wolfe saga is the combination of genres that Rex Stout accomplishes. He takes the "Agatha Christie-esque" drawing room mystery and sets "Dashiel Hammet-ish" detectives to solve it. This mystery is prototypical Nero Wolfe. An heiress dies of ptomaine poisoning and her disinherited brother summons Archie Goodwin (a Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe clone) to the mansion to find the killer among the sycophants of the fabulously wealthy wheelchair-bound widower. The brother dies violently in the house, and Archie Goodwin tricks Nero Wolfe (a sort of cross between Mycroft Holmes and the Continental Op) into coming to the mansion to solve the mystery. Wolfe quickly solves it in true Mycroftian fashion, but has to commit a felony to smoke out the murderer.

Rating:
Summary: Nicely done!
Review: Rex Stout is one of the masters of language. I mean seriously, it's the language that gets you. Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe speak their world into being.

The victim is a whiny little man who gets offed by an unlikely yet predictable culprit. Listening to this audiobook on your evening commute will ease the certain pain of traffic. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Invitation to Murder
Review: Typical Nero Wolfe format. Enjoyed tremendously. Very seldom has Wolfe left his flat (Brownstone)to participate in the solution, this made it worth while.