Here is a new detective by Rex Stout, creator of the famous and beloved Nero Wolfe, who is the antithesis in many ways of his illustrious colleague, Nero. Where Wolfe is sedentary, Hicks is a dynamo of energy, where Wolfe is subtle. Hicks is brusque and direct; only in one thing are they alike — eccentricity. Alphabet Hicks, a lawyer more or less happy in disbarment, was content to make his living driving a taxi-cab until a certain woman happened to ride in his cab. This fare was the reason why Hicks left his cab and agreed to take a case, a case that turned out to have an intimate connection with the manufacture of plastics, and an even more intimate connection with some killings at a plastics laboratory some fifty miles from New York. That is the beginning, but by no means the end. This is a story with the pace of an airplane written with the skill of Rex Stout

The sexes battle, the mind feuds with emotions it cannot control and crime extorts and strikes and kills but it does not pay in this collection of stories by Rex Stout at the outset of his celebrated career in mystery and suspense. Again and again in these tales taken from the pages of pulps that originally published him — from popular magazines like All Story Weekly, the Black Cat and the Smart Set — the creator of the immortal Nero Wolfe proves himself to be the master of the sudden reversal and unexpected revelation as he probes the thwarted heart, the wounded soul and the criminal intelligence

The old-fashioned firm of Tingley’s Titbits had built up over a number of years a good and solid reputation, which was now in danger of being ruined. Indignant customers were returning jars of liver paté, sandwich spread, spiced anchovies and other such delicacies. Analysis showed that the contents had been adulterated with quinine. Arthur Tingley, the proprietor, was at his wits’ end. It was not only bad for business, it looked like being fatal. And it was... for Arthur. Here is a fine new murder story by that most entertaining of all detective writers, Rex Stout, featuring one of his famous characters, Tecumseh Fox, in the rôle of detective

In this story Nero Wolfe investigates the murders of Dazy Perrit, an underworld kingpin

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

In this story Nero working for the War Department. The case presented to him involves widespread industrial sabotage, and without much in the way of clues, Nero, with Archie’s help, sets his own “booby traps” to catch a murderer and a traitor

In “Bullet for One,” a man with a lot of enemies is shot dead while riding his horse in the early morning in Central Park; five of the six suspects believe the sixth man is the culprit, but he’s got an ironclad alibi

Faith Usher tells anyone willing to listen that she wants to kill herself. So when she dies after drinking champagne at the annual gala for unwed mothers, everyone insists that it was suicide. Everyone except Archie Goodwin, the perennial wise guy, who was watching her drink

Wolfe is hired by a society party planner to find out who is writing poison pen letters about her and sending them to her clients and potential clients. Since it appears that the letters are coming from a member of the party planner’s household, Archie is sent up to her Riverdale mansion to investigate. The client dies a few days into the investigation. Was it an accident or murder? Is there a connection between the death and the letters? If it was murder how was it done?

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

“Here’s the gun I’m not going to use to kill my husband.” That’s what she said. But he was killed, and with that gun, or with one just like it... and Archie Goodwin had tampered with the gun himself

When orchid nurse Theodore Horstmann leaves the brownstone indefinitely to tend to his sick mother, Nero Wolfe goes out — in the snow and on foot — into the raging wilds of Westchester to find a replacement. He and Archie find a corpse in the greenhouse, as well

The most engaging new detective of the year — Tecumseh Fox! Meet him in a neatly dovetailed mystery which is right up to the unbeatable standard of Rex Stout’s best. Two shots in the dark and a silent figure sprawled on the floor of Ridley Thorpe’s bungalow hideaway start thins mystery of a millionaire’s death in which passion spin the plot through he lanes and highways of New York’s suburbia. You will be hearing a lot more about Tecumseh Fox in the future, so you will do well to make his acquaintance right now. Maybe you will agree with the local police officials in the story who think the name most appropriate to the man

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!

a book to remember... In this book you will investigate crime with such Famous Detectives as Perry Mason Nero Wolfe Ellery Queen and read stories of detection and suspense by such Famous Mystery Writers as Agatha Christie John Dickson Carr George Harmon Coxe Charlotte Armstrong Hugh Pentecost and be surprised at tales of mystery and crime by such Famous Literary Figures as W. Somerset Maugham Ben Hecht, John Van Druten A book to remember, a book to read and reread — a book to treasure and keep permanently in your library

In this story Nero Wolfe investigates the murders of Ben Jensen, a well-connected publisher

Nero Wolfe again exposes a communist-murderer in a case both the FBI and the police try to keep hushed. Two female suspects smack it out in Wolfe’s office and one drunken woman pats him on the head after pouring scotch in his beer. The feds and cops try to raise hell when they learn that Wolfe offers to “bribe” a suspect

Nero Wolfe agreed to cook the Ambassador’s trout — not to catch the diplomat’s killer

In this story Nero Wolfe investigates the murders of Eugene R. Poor, an inventor of novelties

Ptomaine poisoning killed the heiress. Now their client can cozy up to the money. But there are too many beautiful women in the mansion, and the slimy little parasite is confused when he should be scared. After Archie Goodwin drops the ball, Nero Wolfe is ready to break a few laws — like extortion

Cuando un poderoso representante gubernamental de la O.R.P. (Oficina de Regulación de Precios) está preparándose para hablar ante un grupo de millonarios pertenecientes a la A.I.N. (Asociación Industrial Nacional) muere asesinado. El mundo de los negocios se tambalea ante las sospechas vertidas sobre los magnates asistentes a la conferencia. La A.I.N. exige que se encuentre al asesino y Nero Wolfe decide hacerse cargo del caso

A high-fashion designer consults Wolfe after she sees her uncle — believed to have committed suicide a year before — in disguise and in the audience at one of her shows

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 Method Three for Murder

"Murder Is No Joke,” a workaday whodunit in a couturier’s salon, is a sample, par excellence, 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

The great detective was baffled by a misfit piece in the puzzle of a millionaire’s murder

The U.S. army wants Nero Wolfe urgently, but the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth refuses the call to duty. It takes his perambulatory confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin, to titillate Wolfe’s taste for crime with two malevolent morsels: a corpse that won’t rest in peace and a sinister “accident” involving national security. So as Goodwin lays the bait on the wrong side of the law, Wolfe sets the traps to catch a pair of wily killers

As a favor for his oldest friend Marko Vukcic, Nero Wolfe takes the case of Virgil Pompa, a chef who traded his genius for a high-paying job as the supervisor of a restaurant chain. He is in jail, charged with murder. Archie begins the story with the statement, "In my opinion it was one of Nero Wolfe's neatest jobs, and he never got a nickel for it."

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 Poison à la Carte