The Black Mountain (A Nero Wolfe Mystery Book 24)

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Book club editions are sometimes thinner and often taller (usually by a quarter of an inch) than first editions. Auburn, California: The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters ISBN 1-57270-545-0 August 28, 2006 [1997], audio CD (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard) Stout, Rex (1913). Her Forbidden Knight. New York: Severn House Publishers [1997]. ISBN 0727853694. Eiffel Tower Effect: Mount Lovcen is the most famous feature and namesake of Montenegro (and also the origin of Wolfe's first name), and most of the action in Montenegro occurs close to the mountain. Contains the short stories " Invitation to Murder", " The Zero Clue" and " This Won't Kill You" [1] :83

For Stout himself, however, there were no such qualms about marriage. His first one ended in divorce, but his second marriage to Pola Hoffman was by all accounts a happy one and lasted for forty-three years, until Stout’s death in 1975. “One trouble with living beyond your deserved number of years is that there’s always some reason to live another year.” Radio, however, saw four different Wolfe drama series: The Adventures of Nero Wolfe (ABC, 1943-44), The Amazing Nero Wolfe (Mutual Broadcasting System, 1945), The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe (NBC, 1950-51), and Nero Wolfe (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1982). The CBC series was widely praised. Of the others, the most notable was NBC’s, starring Sydney Greenstreet as Wolfe. It’s been credited as the series most responsible for popularizing Wolfe on radio, but reputedly Greenstreet tended to overact and insisted that it was the Archies that were at fault, with the result that four different actors played the part over a six-month span. The Illegal: Wolfe and Archie are undocumented immigrants in Montenegro, but manage to avoid both imprisonment and deportation. More an adventure than a mystery, this book was notable for Stout’s giving his readers a much more complete picture of the detective.Once again, he needed to make money—and Nero Wolfe was born: “I realized that I was a good story-teller, but would never make a great novelist….Whatever comments I might want to make about people and their handling of life could be made in detective stories as well as any other kind.” They were an immediate hit, and Stout settled into a routine: “Every book takes me from 35 to 41 days to write. I don’t know why that is,” he told Life magazine [elsewhere, he claimed that number as 37 or 38, but no matter]. “I’ve tried to get it down to 30 or 31, depending on the length of the month, but it won’t work. I don’t drink while I’m writing because it fuddles my logical processes, but when I finish a book I go down to the kitchen and pour myself a big belt.” All I can say is Wow! Considering the fact that this book was written in 1954, it seems very prescient. Rex Stout did a very good job portraying/describing the conditions of the people of Montenegro, which was, during the 1950's, part of Yugoslavia. Considering the fact that they believed there was always hope, if not for Montenegrins of that time, but for their children, is how Mr Stout "saw the future." I took the time to read up on Montenegro and it did reach full independence in 2006. They waited centuries but Montenegro finally became it's own country, under no one's rule. Baring-Gould, William S., Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street (1969, Viking Press; ISBN 0-14-006194-0). Fanciful biography. Reviewed in Time, March 21, 1969 [22] I devoured Nero Wolfe books when I was a kid. I remember walking into the bookstore and heading straight to the mystery section to buy the next two or three in the series and then reading them over the next couple of weeks. He does, and it leads to her death—and from then on, it’s not just about money for Wolfe and Archie, it’s about justice. It’s an emotional case, with some startling actions on Wolfe’s part, a great payoff, and real fireworks along the way.

Stout responds in verse after a review of The League of Frightened Men states "the fact that Rex Stout was a legitimate novelist before he took up the trade of mystery monger" [2] :261 [3]

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Also titled "Santa Claus Beat," "Cop's Gift" "Christmas Beat" and "Nobody Deserved Justice" in magazine and anthology reprintings [1] :66 Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. The author, Rex Stout, wrote many other Nero Wolfe stories before this one. There is a reason in that factoid not to make this your first Wolfe read.