Archie Goes Home

Starred review from March 9, 2020
Goldsborough’s first-rate Nero Wolfe mystery (after 2019’s Death of an Art Collector) deepens Rex Stout’s characters by extrapolating from the original novels’ few clues to paint a plausible portrait of Archie Goodwin’s unnamed Ohio hometown. Archie’s aunt, Edna Wainwright, alerts him to a suspicious death there. Octogenarian banker Logan Mulgrew was found dead in his home, an apparent suicide, but Edna believes that Mulgrew, who had enemies in the area, may have been murdered. That belief is strengthened after someone fires a gun at the apartment of a journalist who wrote a column questioning whether Mulgrew took his own life. Archie uses a trip home to visit his mother as an opportunity to indulge his aunt’s curiosity and look into those wronged enough by Mulgrew to have a motive to kill him. Goldsborough doesn’t strike a false note, an impressive feat given the sparse information about Archie’s background that Stout provided. This clever pastiche will enthrall Stout fans. Agent: Erik Simon, Martha Kaplan Agency.

March 15, 2020
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president. Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there's no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie's mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes' spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester's sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester's granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle's substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives' gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie's boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie's door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie's living room in which he names the killer. The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.

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April 1, 2020
Neither in Rex Stout's 33 Nero Wolfe novels, nor in the 14 written by Goldsborough featuring Stout's characters, did readers learn much about the early life of Wolfe's legman Archie Goodwin. That changes here, as Goldsborough takes Archie back home to Ohio, where he is summoned by his nosy Aunt Edna to investigate the presumed suicide of a banker. Edna, attuned to local gossip, feels the banker was murdered. Lured by the opportunity to visit his mother, Archie hits the road, but he soon finds himself at a dead end. Mom promptly summons Wolfe, and the notoriously homebound detective, who's always had a soft spot for Mrs. Goodwin, piles into his royal-blue Heron and, with Archie's fellow legman, Saul Panzer, at the wheel, ventures into the hinterlands. Soon enough, Wolfe has gathered the suspects in the Goodwin living room for the great reveal. Goldsborough does a fine job of adhering to the series formula while salting the meal with plenty of Archie's backstory and Wolfe's discomfort at being away from the friendly confines of West 35th Street. A treat for all Nero's and Archie's fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)