When I get stressed about too many book choices, I end up reading Nero Wolfe. For a while I was stressed about what to do when I run out of Nero Wolfe, but I think I'll just move on to Amelia Peabody books. Anyway.
This is a collection of three novellas; in each, someone wants to hire Wolfe to stop him from being murdered. In each, Wolfe is basically like "No, if someone wants to kill you it's super easy to do, go away," and then the person is murdered, and Wolfe figures out who did it and why. You can tell that these are republished from earlier publication because Archie is in the Army again in two of them, which I always enjoy.
I one of these, a well-known gangster wants to hire Wolfe to protect his daughter. There's a great twist. In the second, Wolfe hires someone to impersonate himself so no one can murder him. That one has a pretty okay twist, but does require Wolfe to temporarily not be a genius. The third one has a man who makes fake cigars come to Wolfe and announce that his business partner is trying to kill him (and then he's killed by an exploding cigar). This one has a GREAT twist.
In all of them, Archie is a sarcastic monster. He hits on a lot of ladies and yells at Nero Wolfe. Each of these novellas is long enough to be satisfying and short enough to read in a single sitting. I don't normally like short stories but I do like these mini mysteries.
Grade: A
#35 in 2016
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