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Curtains for Three--First Edition
Cutains for Three--First Edition

SYNOPSIS:

FIRST THE POLICE!
THEN THE FBI!
WHAT NEXT?

Nero Wolfe was already making fools out of meddling, incompetent officialdom when the FBI was still just a glimmer in J. Edgar Hoover's eye. He knows they've got a job to do. He just regrets they can't do it better. No cop likes to have a door slammed in his face, but if it helps to catch a murderer, what else can Nero Wolfe do? No cop likes to have it thrown up in his face that he's an inefficient bungler, but if it's only the sad truth, who is Nero Wolfe to conceal it? A murder weapon that wouldn't lie down and stay put . . .an opera star who could only whisper . . . a posse on horseback chasing a killer through New York's central Park . . . a desperate girl with so many aliases she'd almost forgotten who she really was. ... A stellar triple bill of mayhem and mystery featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.


QUOTATIONS:

The Gun with Wings:
"For nine months of the year Inspector Cramer of Homicide, big and broad and turning grey, looked the part well enough, but in the summertime the heat kept his face so red that he was a little gaudy. He knew it and didn't like it, and as a result he was some harder to deal with [sic] in August than in January. If an occasion arises for me to commit a murder in Manhattan I hope it will be winter." (p. 400)"

Bullet for One:
"I wriggled off the stool and out of the booth and stood muttering to myself until I noticed that the line of girls on stools at the soda fountain, especially one of them with blue eyes and dimples, was rudely staring at me. I told her distinctly, 'Meet me at Tiffany's ring counter at two o'clock,' and strode out." (p. 452)

Disguise for Murder:
[Wolfe responds to Cramer's claim that the office must be sealed as a matter of routine.] "No, Mr. Cramer. I'll tell you what it is. It is the malefic spite of a sullen little soul and a crabbed and envious mind. It is the childish rancor of a primacy too often challenged and offended." (p. 502)


REVIEW:

I'm a sucker for Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. This one has three stories: the first is about a dead guy whose death is ruled a suicide because the gun was right there next to him and he was shot the way a suicide would do it. But the widow and her boyfriend tell Wolfe that when they found the body, the gun wasn't there. Who moved the gun and who killed him? Who cares> It's the reading that's fun. The second story is about a mean rich guy who gets killed while riding his horse through central park. The people in his life have decided who did it, but Wolf and Archie decide otherwise. The third story is about Wolfe's orchid party, in which he invites 200 people from some flower club to come and look at his orchids. During the viewing, a woman sees the person who murdered her friend a few months before, but before she can tell Wolfe whodunit, she's murdered in Wolfe's office while everybody is upstairs. [GoodReads.com]