Orchids and machine guns, the privileged rich, and tough private eyes make for a heady mix, which reader Michael Prichard spins in classic late 1940s' style. The phlegmatic, cerebral, orchid-and-food-fancying sleuth Nero Wolfe, like a twentieth-century Mycroft Holmes, accepts a case involving not only the players mentioned, but also a search for Communists. Prichard tells the story in the first- person point of view of Wolfe's right hand, the tough, canny, and pleasure-loving Archie Goodwin.
Nero Wolfe is sleuthing as usual in these three mysteries. In the Best Families deals with Mrs. Rackam, an aging millionaire who approaches Wolfe to investigate why her young and penniless husband suddenly and mysteriously has large sums of money. Wolfe's inquiry leads him to a confrontation with Arnold Zeck; later a letter bomb causes Wolfe to resign from detective work and go into hiding, leaving his assistant, Archie Goodwin, to solve the case. Has Wolfe's career ended in humiliation?
Trouble in Triplicate tells a trio of tales in which the murder victim comes to Wolfe before being killed. In "Before I Die" a crime boss brings a blackmail case to Wolfe, never expecting to die. But just in case, he makes Wolfe the executor of his estate, thereby making Wolfe and Archie Goodwin the prime suspects in his murder. Wolfe's task: solve the crime boss's murder before he and Archie are erased by the boss's vengeful hit man. In "Help Wanted--Male" Wolfe blows off a prospective client who has received a death threat mere hours before the man's brutal murder.
An employee of a very large corporation dies in a hit-and-run accident. Rumors abound that it was murder, disrupting morale. Nero and Archie are hired to either scotch the rumors or find the truth re: the mysterious death. These circumstances put Archie smack dab in the middle of hundreds of young working women -- many of them suspects, most of them of interest to Archie on other levels.
When a powerful government official scheduled to speak to a group of millionaires turns up dead, the business world clamors for a solution, and Nero Wolfe takes the case.
