“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...
Erle Stanley Gardner — creator of Perry Mason — was the bestselling author of detective fiction of all time. Many of his best early short novels originally appeared in the famous Black Mask magazine alongside Dashiell Hammett and Raymond...
Even Paul Drake was convinced... this time, Perry Mason’s client was guilty! Although Amelia Corning, owner of the Corning mine interests, was confined to a wheel chair, no one had the misconception that she was a gentle, little old lady....
In first century A.D. Rome, during the reign of Vespasian, Marcus Didius Falco works as a private “informer,” often for the emperor, ferreting out hidden truths and bringing villains to ground. But even informers take vacations with their wives,...
Archie Goodwin attempts to help two scared illegal immigrants only to learn that they are prime suspects in the murder of a policeman. The man nearly breaks Archie’s back in trying to get away from Nero Wolfe’s before homicide cops come for him....
Wolfe’s cook is in bed with the flu which is a total disaster for the corpulent Nero, estimated to weigh between 310 and 390 pounds. He opens a can of pate, takes a bite and promptly spits it out assured that he has been poisoned. Archie Goodwin,...
Comrie and Hera are planning to marry but, before taking the risk of setting up as legal life-partners, they decide on an unusual test of compatibility: they embark on a long, sometimes arduous pilgrimage along part of Scotland's West Highland...