Murder in the Ball Park

Starred review from November 25, 2013
At the start of Goldsborough’s superb ninth Nero Wolfe mystery (after 2013’s Archie Meets Nero Wolfe: A Prequel), Archie Goodwin, Wolfe’s leg man, is on hand when a sniper takes out New York state senator Orson Milbank at a Dodgers-Giants game at the Polo Grounds in post-WWII Manhattan. The politician had ruffled some feathers with his shifting position on an upstate parkway, including those of a mob boss and of naturalists concerned about the project’s environmental impact. Milbank’s widow, former Hollywood actress Elise DuVal, makes Wolfe an offer he cannot refuse to solve the case after the NYPD fails to make any meaningful progress. The investigation follows the usual dynamic of Rex Stout’s originals, with Archie dutifully reporting back to the sedentary genius before a gathering of the suspects in Wolfe’s West 35th Street brownstone for the satisfying denouement. Agent: Erik Simon, Martha Kaplan Agency.

January 1, 2014
Archie Goodwin and his favorite private operative, Saul Panzer, decide to take in a ball game at the Polo Grounds a few years after the end of WWII. The game is forgotten when a sniper's bullet takes out state senator Orson Milbank, the originator of legislation creating a roadway from New York City into some nearby rural counties. Environmental groups are opposed, as is a mobster with bloody hands. Was Millbank's killing political, or did his womanizing catch up with him? The police get nowhere, and eventually a reluctant Nero Wolfe agrees to take the case. Per usual, Archie does the legwork, while Wolfe ruminates and tends to his orchids. Ah, life in the famous brownstone, where Wolfe eventually gathers the principals and reveals the killer in his usual genteel fashion. Goldsborough has been engaged by the Rex Stout estate for nearly 30 years to keep Archie and Wolfe on the case. His plotting is excellent, the red herrings clever, and the Wolfeian eccentricities comforting. Very enjoyable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)