Two years after Wolfe’s retirement, his past returns with deadly intent
It wasn’t Nero Wolfe’s idea for Orrie Cather to kill himself, but the great detective gave his blessing to his longtime associate’s plan. Cather had killed three people, and it was only fair to pay the price. Though Wolfe reacted to Cather’s death with his characteristic calmness, prize assistant Archie Goodwin could see the rotund genius of West 35th Street was shaken to his well-fed core. Wolfe decided his sleuthing days were finished. The detective’s retirement lasts until the day Maria Radovich walks through his townhouse door.
She is the daughter of Milos Stefanovic, New York Symphony conductor and long-ago compatriot of Wolfe’s. Like Wolfe, Stefanovic spent his youth as a freedom fighter in the mountains of Montenegro. The conductor has been receiving death threats, and Wolfe agrees to come out of retirement to help his old friend. But before he can attack the case, Stefanovic is murdered, and for the first time in years, Wolfe and Goodwin must go to war.
Murder in E Minor Robert Goldsborough has captured most of the elements necessary to write a good Nero Wolfe book. The dialog between Archie and Nero is not up to Rex Stout’s standards, but it’s not bad. All the regular characters show up as scheduled, and the plot is pretty good, though a bit contrived in its motive for murder. Certainly a good read for any Wolfe fan who is missing their “favorite fatty.”
Murder in E Minor “Murder in E Minor” is the first Nero Wolfe novel written by Robert Goldsborough, who continues the famous series created by Rex Stout. The book begins in 1977, two years since Stout’s last novel “A Family Affair” was published. Nero Wolfe has not taken a case since then and Archie wonders if he will ever work again. Maria Radovich asks Wolfe’s help in finding who is sending her uncle Milan Stevens, the conductor of the New York Symphony, threatening notes. Wolfe agrees to…
Not bad for a Continuation first attempt Two years after the sad events in A Family Affair, Wolfe is still “withdrawn from practice.” But then the grand-niece of Milos Stefanovic, one of Wolfe’s old guerrilla band from Montenegro, arranges to see Archie Goodwin. She brings news that not only is Stefanovic still alive, but has been conducting the New York Symphony under the name of Milan Stevens for the last two years. And, he has begun receiving death threats. When the inevitable murder finally happens (as you knew it would), once…