Death on Deadline (Nero Wolfe)

The plot is well conceived and executed, resulting in a singularly enjoyable page turner. Settle in with your cup of coffee or other beverage and expect to be entertained by the interesting characters that participate in this mystery. Up to the end the guilty party is not apparent although the development of events sustains the readers attention. Well done Mr. Goldsborough. I look forward to your other Nero Wolfe volumes.

I so loved Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series. I collected each and every one and have reread them many times. So when I heard the Stout estate had authorized another author to continue the series I was cautiously optimistic. The first book I read, Bloodied Ivy: A Nero Wolfe Mystery, was a disappointment. One of Wolfe characteristics was his strong opposition to leaving the old brownstone house, doing so ONLY when he had to. So what does Goldsborough do here but have him leave the brownstone to investigate a murder on a college campus. While the story in that book wasn't horrible it just didn't seem like it was about Nero Wolfe. So along comes this effort, Death on Deadline, and low- & -behold, he got it right. A previous reviewer wrote "It is almost as good as the top tier Rex Stouts." Well, that's really pushing but I do agree that this is far and away Goldborough's best Nero Wolfe novel. The characteristics of both Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are dead on, the story was intriguing, and the ending was classic Wolfe. A very enjoyable read and gave hope for the new series. Alas, after this book the next two Robert Goldsborough's Nero Wolfe books were bad. Not just average, but bad. I couldn't even finish "The Silver Spire." I went back to his first effort, Murder in E Minor which I had missed when it was first published and although it's better than most it still wasn't a Nero Wolfe story, no matter what the names of the characters were. So if you are a Rex Stout/Nero Wolfe fanatic like I am, by all means give this book a shot. I think you will be quite surprised and very pleased. I would recommend that you skip the rest.

Having read all of the Nero Wolfe canon when I was younger, and now revisiting the books because of the new Timothy Hutton series, this time around I came to a deeper appreciation of the humor in the books and the relationship between the two men. But since they are fast reads, I ran out of them too quickly. So, I was delighted to find that someone else was trying to pick up the thread. The fun thing about these characters is that, no matter the decade, they remain the same age - would that all of us could do that. So I gave this book a try. Unlike some other readers I was surprised to find that it seemed exactly like a Rex Stout book. Goldsborough captured Archie's voice and Wolfe's vocabulary plus here and there the humor was exactly what you would expect from Archie. The only thing I found jarring was the references to computers, etc. But Stout would have done the same since he always placed his characters in the time he was living in. I think it is unimportant to cavil about how Goldsborough is unlike Stout. We cannot have Rex Stout back unfortunately. I'm just glad we can still have Archie and Wolfe and all the other delightful characters in their world.

This is the best of the Goldsboroughs. It is almost as good as the top tier Rex Stouts. It deserves to be in print along with the Rex Stout Nero Wolfe novels.