Murder by chocolate? That’s the premise Nero Wolfe must operate from when a beautiful woman is poisoned after indulging in a box of candy. It’s a case that the great detective—no stranger himself to overindulgence—is loath to take for a variety of reasons, including that it may require that he leave his comfortable brownstone. But he and Archie are compelled by a mystery that mixes high fashion and low motives…and a killer who may have made the deadliest mistake.
It wasn’t Archie’s fault really. It’s true he went to America and fell in love with Lucille, the daughter of a millionaire hotel proprietor and if he did marry her–well, what else was there to do? From his point of view, the whole thing was a thoroughly good egg; but Mr. Brewster, his father-in-law, thought differently, Archie had neither money nor occupation, which was distasteful in the eyes of the industrious Mr. Brewster; but the real bar was the fact that he had once adversely criticised one of his hotels.
In this collection of problems, Raymond Smullyan transports the game of chess to the world of the Arabian knights. The White King is Haroun Al Rashid, the White Bishop is his Grand Vizier, Archie. They are out to counter the Black King Kazir's attempts at invisibility, and to unmask the disguised Queen Medea. In addition, using the deductive logic that is the hallmark of these exercises in retrograde analysis, Haroun and Archie discover pawns who've robbed the royal treasury, lazy knights who refuse to move more than once or twice, and buried castles, as well as encountering any number of phantoms, genii, magicians, philosophers, and hermits.
Unwilling to accept a suicide ruling after witnessing the death of the admittedly morbid Faith Usher, Archie Goodwin is assisted in the investigation by Nero Wolfe, who has been warned to stay away from the case.
A vast fortune in uranium, international diplomacy and intrigue, and a female detective become the focus of a trio of mysteries featuring epicurean sleuth Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie Goodwin.
