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Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:Jerin is a mental freak�??a man capable of successfully playing a dozen simultaneous chess games against first-rate players while he himself is out of sight of any of the boards. It is while thus engaged that he is killed. A millionaire�??his opponent in more realms than chess�??is accused, and Nero Wolfe is given what appears to be the most hopeless case he and Archie Goodwin have ever tackled. You need to know nothing about chess to follow this tale, but some understanding of beautiful mothers and daughters will help. �??It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore.�?��??The New York Times Book Review A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America�??s greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained�??and puzzled�??millions of mystery fans around the world. Now, with his perambulatory man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable… (more)
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The aspect of the book that I found least interesting was the actual mystery part of this. Not being a chess player, I had no concept of the runners and go-betweens that were critical to the novel. My concept of chess is two people sitting in front of a board facing each other. All of these extraneous people seemed pointless. Also, the killing and motive for killing seems so thin and weak. I think it takes something extraordinary for a regular person to kill another. In this case, it seemed like Stout wanted to come up with a murder surrounding a chess game but ran out of good reasons to have one human being kill another and what resulted was this flimsy garbage. All the same, it was not a bad read, more in terms of character than plot.
Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity
The murder had taken place in at the posh Gambit Club, a chess club for snobs. Jerin will play a dozen games at the same time without seeing the boards. Instead he will sit in another room and four messengers will bring him the moves and relay his moves to the other players. Blount brings Jerin his cocoa and leaves the room. When Jerin complains of sickness, Blount is the one to remove the cup, saucer and pot, rinse them and bring a fresh serving. Why did Blount rinse the utensils? This action puts Blount in the guilty seat as far as Inspector Cramer is concerned.
Wolf is convinced that Blount is innocent, not just because of what Miss Blount tells him, but also because of the $22,000 she gives him to solve the case. Wolf hates to lose a fee.
There are possible suspects: the messengers Yerkes - a retired banker, Farrow - the nephew of Mrs. Blount, Hausman - a retired broker, Kalmus - Blount's lawyer; but do they have a reason or the time to poison Jerin's cocoa? And what about Mrs. Blount who men find irresistible?
Wolf finally decides that he needs to come up with a gambit to flush out the murder and keep his fee.