And Be a Villain

My first Nero Wolfe and I will come back for more. The case involves a man who died on the radio, during a broadcast, when his drink, High Top, a sponsor of the show, is laced with poison and kills him on the air. You can imagine the sensation! Wolfe and his associate Archie Goodwin, are on the case. The criminal is sneaky but you suspect them from the start. The proving is the fun part. I think that Wolfe, a man who rarely leaves his home to do anything, is an interesting hero and Archie has some of the best one-liners written down. ( )

Another excellent Wolfe mystery, this may have been my favorite so far in the series. ( )

Interesting. There is a lot of personality, and quick dialog. The characters are a bit cartoonish for my taste, and don't feel real. I can see how one could grow into them. I like the bits of humor, but in the mystery genre I'd rather see keen observations of humanity, and those were just missing. ( )

When a radio talk show guest is murdered during a live broadcast, Nero Wolfe is hired to investigate.
The fee will come in handy to pay the IRS the large sum he owes. Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin uncover additional criminal activity as they investigate the murder. As usual, they beat Inspector Cramer to the solution of the crime and the identification of the criminal.

I borrowed the audio version from OverDrive, and it has not been updated for the digital era. Every 30-40 minutes, the reader instructed us to either flip the cassette over or insert the next cassette. The reader's voice also reminded me very much of radio broadcaster Paul Harvey. If you think either of these things would annoy you, I suggest sticking with the print version. ( )

A radio show guest is murdered live on the air, poisoned after drinking some of the sponsor's beverage. Was the guest the intended victim or did the bottle end up in the wrong person's hand? What was the motive? While there were a few places the plot bogged down, it rarely did so while Nero Wolfe was in the detecting mode. We listened to this on audiobook downloaded from Overdrive and were amused every time it told us to change the cassette or to flip the cassette or hit reverse. Could these directions not be edited out? Still, it provided a laugh every thirty minutes or so, and the rating is unaffected by this oddity. ( )