Barb's Book Reviews: Review of "The Missing Chapter: A Nero Wolfe Mystery" by Robert Goldsborough

Nero Wolfe is a legendary fictional private investigator created by Rex Stout. When Stout died, the series was continued by Robert Goldsborough. This is the 7th Nero Wolfe book by Goldsborough, and - like the rest of the series - can be read as a standalone.

Nero Wolfe is an eccentric, obese private detective who lives and works in a brownstone in New York City. Wolfe almost never leaves his house; spends four hours a day tending his orchids; has a chef who prepares delicious gourmet meals; loves beer; and would rather read books than take new cases.

Wolfe employs Archie Goodwin as his assistant, legman, and gadfly - a smartmouth who prods Wolfe to 'go to work' when the bank account is running low.

Stout's original Nero Wolfe books are set in the 1930s but this story is updated to the 1990s, and the characters have personal computers, watch David Letterman, etc. In this mystery, Wolfe and Archie look into the death of a writer - a character who seems to be inspired by Robert Goldsborough himself.

*****

Charles Childress is a 'continuator', a novelist who carries on writing Darius Sawyer's 'Sergeant Barnstable mysteries' after Sawyer dies.

Some Barnstable fans love the books and others examine every word with a fine tooth comb to ferret out any differences from Sawyer's original series.

Childress is a boastful, arrogant, irascible fellow who dumps his editor Keith Billings for making 'capricious changes' to Childress' manuscripts;

fires his agent Franklin Ott for not negotiating an 80 percent raise with the publisher;

and fumes against book critic Wilbur Hobbs for penning bad reviews of Childress' mysteries.

Childress even goes public with his ire, excoriating the agent and editor in the influential Manhattan Literary Times. Childress goes so far as to accuse critic Hobbs of being on the take, of accepting gifts and money to write rave reviews.

Childress seems to have better luck with the fairer sex, since he's engaged to beautiful Debra Mitchell.....

....and is cordial with fellow author Patricia Royce, whom he allows to use his laptop on occasion.

When Childress is found dead in his Greenwich Village apartment with a bullet in his head, the police mark it as a suicide. However Childress' publisher Horace Vinson believes the writer was murdered, and Vinson hires Nero Wolfe to ferret out the culprit.

Wolfe and Archie interview all the persons of interest, and the editor, agent, and critic all admit they disliked Childress, but insist they didn't kill him. As for the women, Childress' fiancée Debra and his colleague Patricia Royce point fingers at each other.

Archie even takes a trip to Childress' home town in Indiana, to see if anyone there wanted the writer dead. This excursion unearths another possible suspect, a woman who feels Childress done her wrong.

As all this is going on, the elevator in Wolfe's brownstone, which the detective uses to ascend to the orchid greenhouse on the roof, breaks. The lift must be replaced, and the attendant banging and clatter annoy Wolfe no end.

Of course Wolfe exposes the murderer in his usual style, by gathering all the suspects in his office, along with Police Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Purley Stebbins, and announcing who done it.

The plot is engaging enough, but a big part of the series' fun lies with Archie's snarky remarks and the delicious meals served by Wolfe's Swiss chef Fritz Brenner (you'd better not call him a Frenchman 🙂).