Nero Wolfe Скачать все книги 68 Количество книг

Archie Goodwin is chipper as he strolls home from his weekly poker game, money in his pocket and a smile on his lips. He has just reached Nero Wolfe’s stately brownstone on West Thirty-Fifth Street when a sedan whips around the corner and two gunshots ring out, nearly hitting him. It is a warning, and the message is clear: The next bullet will not miss.

Rotund investigator Nero Wolfe has made more than his fair share of enemies over the years, and it seems one of them has decided to strike, targeting Wolfe’s indefatigable assistant. Some might run for cover, but Archie Goodwin is not the type. With the help of Wolfe’s brainpower, Goodwin will find the man who wants him dead — unless the killer gets to Goodwin first.

Archie Goodwin’s very good friend, Lily Rowan, spends much of her time — and considerable financial resources — helping women in need, from underpaid workers to mistreated wives. But at the moment she’s particularly concerned about one woman: her best friend, Maureen, a beautiful socialite who’s been incommunicado for two weeks.

After Archie helps Lily comb through Maureen’s deserted Park Avenue penthouse, and Lily contacts each of her friend’s well-heeled suitors, they still don’t know much more than when they started. Then Archie tries to track down Maureen’s estranged half-brother, but he seems to have vanished as well. Fortunately, Archie’s employer, Nero Wolfe, has a soft spot for Lily. He volunteers to step in — just in time, too, as this missing-person case soon becomes a murder case...

Archie Goodwin leaves Manhattan for the Midwest to find out who put a bullet into a banker.

Archie Goodwin’s aunt Edna is about to lure him away from his work at Nero Wolfe’s New York brownstone. After an ominous phone call, he heads off to Ohio, where the president of Farmer’s State Bank and Trust, an elderly widower, has died in an apparent suicide. But Archie’s aunt has expressed nagging suspicions — which only grow stronger when someone takes a shot at a local reporter who wrote about the case.

It wouldn’t be a small town without some gossip, and Archie soon hears the whispers: romantic intrigues, a possible paternity case, a ruined business. While reconnecting with his aging mother — and fending off his unrelenting aunt — Archie tries to untangle a web of grudges, scandals, and murder.

Robert Goldsborough returns with his seventh stunning Nero Wolfe novel. Follow along into Wolfe’s famed West Thirty-fifth Street brownstone, where the corpulent orchid-tending genius devours meals, books, and murderers with a passion — and where this time he gets the chance to send a writer’s killer to the pen.

Charles Childress, the author tapped to continue the beloved Sergeant Barnstable detective stories when the originator died, may not have been the most gifted writer in the world, but he did have his talents... Contentious, combative, and exceedingly vengeful, Childress had an unsurpassed way of making enemies. Which is why, when the police write off his death as suicide, his publisher, Horace Vinson, comes to Nero Wolfe. Vinson knows all too well that in the cutthroat world of publishing, the competition can be murder.

Wolfe, however, is not so easily convinced... or distracted from his more genteel pursuits. After all, the evidence does conform to the official version of the killing: The gun found at the crime scene not only belonged to the victim but bore only his fingerprints. Perhaps Childress finally contrived a successful climax... as the author of his own death.

But Archie Goodwin, Wolfe’s ever-faithful friend and partner; points out that Vinson’s fee would keep the big man in beer and bouillabaisse for some time to come. That is a reality Nero Wolfe can’t refuse, and soon Archie is posing questions that turn up a whole cast of character assassins, including Childress’s ex-editor and agent, his most scathing critic, and his icily beautiful, ambitious fiancée — each of whom would have taken great pleasure in writing the final chapter in the life of Charles Childress.

And then, in a plot twist any would envy, Archie gets wind of the involvement of a mysterious kissing cousin from Childress’s past. Could this be a case of a small-town girl come to right an old wrong? It’s a conundrum so novel even the reluctant Nero Wolfe can’t resist... as extortion, deceit, and jealousy come together in a perfect potboiler of revenge — and murder.

Archie Goodwin is not overly fond of Theodore Horstmann, who takes care of the orchids on the rooftop of Nero Wolfe’s West Thirty-Fifth Street brownstone. But as loyal assistant to the legendary private detective, Archie will put his animosity aside when the surly orchid-keeper stumbles through the front door beaten within an inch of his life. While the gardener lies in a coma, Nero sends Archie to poke around his apartment near the river. The place is neatly kept, if not quite as elegant as the brownstone, but across the street on Tenth Avenue Archie quickly discovers the longshoremen’s watering hole in whose back room Horstmann has been playing a lot of bridge lately. The smoky tavern is packed with tough dockworkers and recent European immigrants, and Archie does his best to blend in, filling the...

Nero Wolfe is back in all his orchid-growing, gourmandizing glory! In The Bloodied Ivy and two previous bestsellers. Robert Goldsborough re-creates Stouts sedentary supersleuth and his energetic aide. Archie Goodwin, so convincingly that even the most devout Stout fans are delighted. John McAleer, Stouts official biographer and editor of The Stout Journal, has said, “A half dozen other writers have attempted it, but Goldsborough’s is the only one that feels authentic, the only one able to get into Rex’s psyche. If I hadn’t known otherwise. I might have been fooled into thinking this was the genuine Stout myself.’ Playboy Sparky Linville has a nasty notion of fun and games. But when he picks popular Noreen James as his unwilling playmate, the result is murder — and a case that will rock Manhattan’s trendy Upper East Side and divide the family of Lily Rowan. Noreens aunt. As furor rages in the local press and the police fix their attention on her relatives. Lily turns to her old friend and confidant Archie Goodwin for help, hoping he can convey the seriousness of the family’s plight to his eminent employer, Nero Wolfe. Wolfe decidedly doesn’t enjoy being distracted from his greenhouse and his groaning board. Yet Archies eloquence — and the prospect of an enormous fee — seduce him into accepting the case. It is, of course, understood that since the master detective has no intention of venturing forth from his snug brown stone sanctuary on Manhattan’s West Side, Archie will handle the leg work. But the more shoe leather Archie burns, the more burning questions arise. There are altogether too many suspects — and every one of them has (a) a strong motive and (b) no alibi. And on top of that, two people have confessed to the crime! Now as Archie faithfully relates his findings, the great Nero Wolfe is left to ponder this bizarre puzzle — and the deadliest coincidence-in the most baffling case of his career.

For the sixth time Robert Goldsborough invites us into Nero Wolfe’s West Thirty-fifth Street brownstone, and once again he re-creates Wolfe’s world to perfection, as the gourmandizing master detective is roused from his sacred orchid-tending routine — by murder. Picturesque Richmond County — Staten Island to most people — is the most overlooked borough in New York City, but one of its residents is known throughout the world: the good reverend Barnabas Bay, shepherd of the Tabernacle of the Silver Spire. For the past six Sundays the splashy televangelist has found a nasty surprise in the collection... Bible quotations twisted into death threats. When one of Reverend Bay’s assistants beseeches Wolfe to find the wicked perpetrator, he refuses — even though the almighty bank account is in need of salvation. After all, the great man does have his convictions, and organized religion offends his sense of morality. And besides, the only plate he’s interested in passing is the one on which a three-star epicurean masterpiece resides. Never one to shirk his Christian duty. Wolfe’s faithful legman Archie Goodwin refers the case to longtime friend and fellow private detective Fred Durkin. It proves a fateful decision: Eleven days later someone at the Silver Spire receives a premature call to meet his maker — and Durkin is charged with murder. As Archie searches for clues and prays for a miracle, the incomparable Nero Wolfe finds himself up against a sinfully clever killer in one of the most baffling — and damning — cases of his career.

THREE RECENTLY DISCOVERED NERO WOLFE CLASSICS Now, with the aid of the Stout estate and Stout’s official biographer, John McAleer, Bantam Books is proud to publish for the first time in book form this newly discovered collection of three Nero Wolfe novellas. ASSAULT ON A BROWNSTONE, the never-before-published version of a novella featuring Wolfe in his most shocking confrontation with the law when his Thirty-fifth Street brownstone is invaded by Treasury officials. FRAME-UP FOR MURDER, concerning a famous fashion designer and a neatly stitched plot that weaves a deadly pattern of death. And BITTER END, a suspenseful story containing one of the nastiest incidents ever to occur at Wolfe’s dinner table.

Nero Wolfe, the brilliant orchid-growing gourmet detective, and his inimitable confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin, are America’s most beloved detection team. Now they are back in a splendid new murder mystery that takes up where Rex Stout left off. In the perfect Stout tradition, author Robert Goldsborough has ingeniously rendered every detail of character and place with such uncanny accuracy that fans will savor every page to its surprising and immensely satisfying conclusion. Threatening notes have been sent to Milan Stevens, celebrated conductor of the New York Symphony. His niece, Maria, fears for her uncle’s life and travels to the Thirty-fifth Street brownstone of Nero Wolfe. Archie can barely conceal his surprise when Wolfe agrees to investigate — Archie has just spent two spectacularly unsuccessful years trying to pry his employer out of retirement. But Wolfe has his own reasons for taking the case, reasons that have nothing to do with helping a pretty young woman in distress. For while the world knows Milan Stevens as a brilliant conductor, Wolfe knows him as Milos Stefanovic, the brave freedom fighter who saved Wolfe’s life many years ago. It is a debt that must be paid. But Maria has come to the big detective too late. Milan Stevens is soon found dead, and Maria’s musician boyfriend, Gerald, is in police custody. Despite Maria’s cries that Gerald could not have possibly committed such a bloody act, there are plenty of witnesses who overheard Stevens screaming at Gerald that marrying his niece was out of the question. To make matters worse, Gerald also happened to be the only person seen entering Stevens’s apartment on the night when the final curtain was pulled on his brilliant life. The juicy public scandal of it all enthralls the city, which is anxious for the next development and the climax of the case. With precious little to go on, and not sold on Gerald’s guilt, Wolfe and Archie begin compiling a list of suspects, discovering very soon that the problem isn’t where to start — it s where to stop. But when the scanty clues finally arrange themselves like notes on a score, Wolfe recognizes a dark melody that only a talented murderer could perform.

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, his do-it-all assistant and the story narrator, proceeds to investigate only to find the owner of the company murdered and his relatives suspected.

The only man who has ever given Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin any real trouble is Rex Stout himself. In this, his latest full-length novel, Stout sets before his famous detecting pair a seemingly insoluble problem. Orrie Cather, one of Nero Wolfe’s occasional employees, is in jail, suspected of murdering a lovely young thing. The lovely young thing has been the well-kept possession of a certain wealthy and influential man who has reasons for not wishing his name dragged into the case. The wealthy man offers to share his wealth with Nero — providing Nero will keep his name from ever being connected with the murder. Nero, at the same time, must get Orrie out of jail. He could easily do this by using his client’s name. It seems impossible to do it otherwise. Problem: How does Nero get Orrie out of jail? How does he keep his client’s name out of the press? And how does he find the true murderer? He does it with the avid and skilled assistance of one Julie Jacquette, a swinging songstress from the Ten Little Indians. That, at least, is partly how he does it...

This is, in the considered opinion of his publishers, the finest detective story ever written by Rex Stout and therefore one of the very best ever written by anyone. As a new peak for the old master, it provides an occasion to celebrate an outstanding career, as well as a new challenge to the wits of his fans. A very rich woman comes to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, claiming that she is being harassed by the FBI. She reports that agents are following her and members of her family, her wires are being tapped, and her privacy is being otherwise invaded. She demands that Wolfe help her to find relief and offers him the largest retainer he has ever seen. Wolfe, with some hesitation, takes the case and quickly encounters a murder about which members of the FBI may know more than is apparent. He also soon finds himself in a direct encounter with FBI agents under highly questionable circumstances. Never before has Rex Stout written a book more perfectly plotted or one with a denouement so skillfully arrived at.

There has been no new full-length Nero Wolfe mystery novel in six years, a wartime shortage which we are delighted to remedy. The brilliant deductive methods of the fabulous fat man, beloved by so many thousands of readers, are put to another stiff test. It is a pleasure to report that Archie is back from the wars as Wolfe’s leg man (Nero himself has been a consultant for the War Department). A murder has been committed, so daring and with such vital national implications that the whole country is shaken. The newspapers are having a field day; the corridors in Washington are buzzing with gossip. The murder took place at the Waldorf, just before the annual dinner of the National Industrial Association, as the guests sipped cocktails in the adjoining room. The murdered man was none other than Cheney Boone, the Director of the Bureau of Price Regulation, who was scheduled to be the principal speaker before this group of the country’s leading business men. industrialists, and manufacturers. Why has he been silenced — and by whom? Again Rex Stout proves that he is still the old maestro in the field of the murder story lightened with wit and written with intelligence and skill. The Viking Press, which has not published a mystery for years, is proud to re-enter the field with this odds-on favorite.

What is it about Nero Wolfe, the food-loving and orchid-fancying misogynist, that draws the most attractive, wealthy, and desperate females to his office? Could it possibly be his leg-man, Archie Goodwin? Archie, at least, is in for another reward in this latest of Nero’s cases, and readers who have followed Archie’s hairbreadth escapes from entrapment in the past will be left wondering at the end of this one. But not about who is guilty of the murders that follow Lucy Valdon’s first visit to West 35th Street. It’s a matter of maternity that brings her, and the trail that is blazed by a few handmade horsehair buttons has the rare effect of leading Nero out of his habitat and forcing him to set up shop outside. There, after grueling hardships, he accomplishes his purpose with his usual aplomb and to the entire satisfaction of the reader.

Murder Is Corny: In which the farmer’s daughter involves Archie Goodwin in a murder charge and Nero finds himself again at work for no fee.

Kill Now, Pay Later: In which Nero Wolfe vindicates his favorite bootblack — for no fee — and Archie Goodwin protects the bootblack’s daughter.

It was preposterously inconvenient. The outer door was locked as usual, yet there she lay — on Nero Wolfe’s carpet, in Nero Wolfe’s office, strangled by Nero Wolfe’s own necktie!

“Here’s the gun I’m going to use to kill my husband.” That’s what she said. But he killed, and with that gun, or with one just like it... and Archie Goodwin had tampered with the gun himself.

Under suspicion for murder and too angry to deny it, harried Hattie Annis offered 42 grand to Nero Wolfe . If she was innocent, you can ask her whether he earned his fee.

Nero Wolfe has always considered murder slightly illegal, but in the three stories in this volume It becomes something far worse — a personal affront. He is in fact, “ruffled beyond the bounds of tolerance” — three times For usually murder takes place at a decent distance from his presence, and now in succession violent death arrives (with the blinis and sour cream) at a dinner for gourmets attended by Wolfe himself, one body comes to the famous West 35th Street address by taxi, and a third murder takes place at a luncheon party where Nero and Archie have gone to partake of some blue grouse.

Altogether, these three situations are really intolerable, and Wolfe is forced to work his brain even faster, and Archie’s feet and fists even harder, than ever before.

Shapely blond, brunette, and titian cupbearers — in flowing robes — attend gourmets’ banquet cooked by Nero Wolfe’s own chef, in prelude to

Nero Wolfe has always considered murder slightly illegal, but in the three stories in this volume It becomes something far worse — a personal affront. He is in fact, “ruffled beyond the bounds of tolerance” — three times For usually murder takes place at a decent distance from his presence, and now in succession violent death arrives (with the blinis and sour cream) at a dinner for gourmets attended by Wolfe himself, one body comes to the famous West 35th Street address by taxi, and a third murder takes place at a luncheon party where Nero and Archie have gone to partake of some blue grouse.

Altogether, these three situations are really intolerable, and Wolfe is forced to work his brain even faster, and Archie’s feet and fists even harder, than ever before.

Nero Wolfe, embroiled with a passel of rodeo riders at a penthouse party, must determine who knotted the noose around a sunburned neck in the case of

The lady taxi-driver’s cab was parked in front of Nero Wolfe’s brownstone with a dead fare in the back seat. Someone chose .

NERO WOLFE, in this complete mystery novel, admired the knives displayed at the picnic until he found one in a corpse in the tent.

"Murder Is No Joke,” a workaday whodunit in a couturier’s salon, is a sample, of the master’s inimitable ability to relate the unrelated — put the round peg in the square hole, so to speak — and nail two killings on one murderer.