SLightly OT - Murder in the Ball Park

[John Cucinotta]

I just finished reading "Murder in the Ball Park", a Nero Wolfe story written by Robert Goldsborough, who has also written several other Wolfe mysteries.  The copy I have was published by Mysteriouspress.com.  I am very impressed with this novel, and it closely resembles the stories written by Rex Stout.  There is great attention to detail, even including items such as food and clients' attire, similar to Rex Stout.  The back-and-forth banter between Wolfe and Archie is delightful.  The mystery element is very clever, and I was still guessing the identity of the killer until the very end.  As I read the book, I kept picturing the characters from the A&E Wolfe series with Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton, which helped bring the story to life.  I have recently purchased a second Wolfe novel by Goldsborough called "Archie in the Cross Hairs", which I will read over my summer vacation from work in a couple weeks.  I highly recommend this novel to old mystery movie fans.

[rodb]

it is a shame that there wasn't a movie version available. It sounds like it would of been quite enjoyable.

[John Cucinotta]

I just finished reading "Archie in the Cross Hairs", which is another Nero Wolfe Mystery written by Robert Goldsborough.  It was another great book to read.  As with "Murder in the Ballpark", there is a clever mystery with strong character development.  I noticed a key clue near the end of the story, so I may be improving my detective skills by reading these books.  I would recommend this book to all fans of Nero Wolfe novels.  Next, I will read "Archie Meets Nero Wolfe", which is a prequel to all of the Nero Wolfe stories. 

[John Cucinotta]

I finished reading "Archie Meets Nero Wolfe" last night.  Like the other two Wolfe novels I read which were written by Robert Goldsborough, this was a well-written book.  The story is supposedly a "prequel" to all of the other Wolfe novels.  I think the main purpose of this book was to tell a story about Archie, more than to have a strong mystery to solve.  Most of the book centers on Archie's activities, and there is less of a mystery element than I saw in the first two books.  Without ruining the book, I can say that Archie starts out as a night watchman for a security company in the New York harbor, and the story obviously traces his eventual rise to employment by Nero Wolfe.  It was a nice book to read, but I would rank it behind the other two Wolfe novels I discussed above.

There are 9 Wolfe novels written by the same author, but my local bookstore does not carry any of the other titles.  I'll be looking on eBay for a few more of these books.

[TARNEVERRO]

I work at our local library 2 days per week. It's a fairly small library, but we do have the Goldsborough books, and they are popular.  I've read a few of them and agree that they are well done and very entertaining.