The Missing Chapter: A Nero Wolfe Mystery - Hardcover

Goldsborough, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786201665 ISBN 13: 9780786201662

Publisher: Thorndike Press, 1994

Synopsis

Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin investigate the suspicious apparent suicide of an irritable writer who was hired to continue a popular mystery series, in a case full of jealousy, ambition, and deadly extortion

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Goldsborough (b. 1937) is an American author best known for continuing Rex Stout’s famous Nero Wolfe series. Born in Chicago, he attended Northwestern University, and upon graduation went to work for the Associated Press, beginning a lifelong career in journalism that would include long periods at the Chicago Tribune and Advertising Age. While at the Tribune, Goldsborough began writing mysteries in the voice of Rex Stout, the creator of iconic sleuths Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Goldsborough’s first novel starring Wolfe, Murder in E Minor (1986), was met with acclaim both from critics and devoted fans, winning a Nero Award from the Wolfe Pack. Six more novels followed, including Death on Deadline (1987) and Fade to Black (1990). In 2005, Goldsborough published Three Strikes You’re Dead, the first in an original series starring Chicago Tribune reporter Snap Malek. His most recent novel is Terror at the Fair (2011).

From Publishers Weekly:

Life imitates art imitates life. In his seventh Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin caper, the writer responsible for continuing the noted series after the death of originator Rex Stout plots a case around the corpse of an author who has continued a mystery series after the original writer's demise. A publisher hires Wolfe and Goodwin to investigate the death, labeled a suicide, of Charles Childress, an ill-tempered author who had recently angered several people, including his agent, his editor and the possibly corrupt reviewer who had lambasted the latest Childress novel. Yet for all that, Childress also had a pretty fiancee, a loyal friend in a fellow author and the devotion of many fans. Goldsborough carefully draws Wolfe and company into the '90s (computers figure in the plot and hold records of Wolfe's beloved orchids), yet the corpulent sleuth still abandons himself to Fritz Brenner's high-fat meals. As always, Archie does the legwork, which in this instance takes him to rural Indiana, Childress's home state, to unearth secrets that Wolfe pieces together in an assured and effective conclusion. Goldsborough ( Fade to Black ) may not recruit new fans to the anachronistic and bulky Wolfe, but he's likely to satisfy the old Rex Stout faithful.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thorndike Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0786201665
• ISBN 13: 9780786201662
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 342