Introduction To Nero Wolfe, Part II Quiz

Answer: Fourth Of July Picnic

In "Fourth Of July Picnic" (published in "And Four To Go"), Wolfe and Archie are at a restaurant workers' union picnic where Wolfe is to deliver a speech because of his association with Rusterman's Restaurant. An organizer of the picnic is murdered and the body is discovered by Wolfe. Through a set of odd circumstances, Wolfe and Archie are the prime suspects. They escape to a friend's apartment where Wolfe manages to get the murderer to incriminate himself.

At the apartment, Archie provides a brief autobiography: "Born in Ohio. Public high school graduate, pretty good at geometry and football, graduated with honor but no honors. Went to college two weeks, decided it was childish, came to New York and got a job guarding a pier, shot and killed two men and was fired, was recommended to Nero Wolfe for a chore he wanted done, did it, was offered a full-time job by Mr. Wolfe, took it, still have it."

Answer: Reading

Wolfe is an avid reader who has about 1200 volumes in the floor-to-ceiling cases in his office ("Gambit"). In "Plot It Yourself," Archie Goodwin comments: "I divide the books Nero Wolfe reads into four grades: A,B,C, and D. If...he picks up his current book and opens to his place before he rings for [refreshment], and if his place is marked with a thin strip of gold, five inches long and an inch wide, the book is an A. If he picks up the book before he rings, but his place is marked with a piece of paper, it is a B. If he rings and then picks up the book and he has a dog-eared age to mark his place, it is a C. If he waits until [his refreshment arrives and is ready to consume it] and his place is dog-eared, it's a D. I would say that of the of the two hundred or so books he reads in a year not more than five or six get an A.

In "Death Of A Dude", where Wolfe visits a ranch in Montana, Goodwin indicates that Wolf has brought with him: "Man's Rise to Civilization as Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of The Industrial State" by Peter Farb; "The First Circle" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn; and a volume of Macaulay's "Essays".

Answer: Fritz Brenner

In "Counterfeit For Murder" (published in "Homicide Trinity"), Archie describes the three: "Saul Panzer is the best operative south of the North Pole. His rate is ten dollars an hour and he is worth twenty. Fred Durkin's rate is seven dollars and he is worth seven-fifty. Orrie Cather's rate is also seven dollars and he is worth six-fifty."

"Counterfeit For Murder" involves the colorful Hattie Annis who hates cops, a group of strange folks who live in her boarding house whether they pay her or not, counterfeiting, and the US Treasury Department and its officers. Wolfe uses all of his resources to flush out the counterfeiter/murder.

Fritz Brenner is Wolfe's live-in chef.

Answer: Wolfe's adopted daughter

Carla Lovchen appears in two stories, "Over My Dead Body" and "The Black Mountain".

In "Over My Dead Body," Wolfe acknowledges that he did adopt a young girl in Montenegro years ago and that the materials she carries are genuine. He then becomes involved in a complicated case involving which of two young women is actually his adopted daughter, a diamond theft at a fencing studio where both women work, the FBI, murders, and a col de mort. Wolfe manages to figure it all out, and the ending is amazing.

In "The Black Mountain", Wolfe discovers that his adopted daughter has disappeared in Montenegro, and that the killer of [his friend] is also there. He and Archie leave New York go to the Black Mountain where they discover the fate of his daughter and solve all of the puzzles.

Answer: Arnold Zeck

Arnold Zeck appears in three Wolfe novels: "And Be A Villain", "The Second Confession", and "In The Best Of Families",

"And Be A Villain" involves Wolfe in a challenging case involving two murder victims who ran blackmail operations, and a radio show hostess and her entourage (one of whom is poisoned). Zeck calls Wolfe to warn him off the case. Wolfe refuses to give up. After the call, Wolfe tells Archie Goodwin, "If ever, in the course of my business, I find that I am committed against him and must destroy him, I shall leave this house, find a place where I can work --and sleep and eat if there is time for it--and stay there until I have finished."

In "The Second Confession," Nero Wolfe sets out to determine if Louis Rony is a member of the Communist Party. Zeck warns Wolfe to drop the case; Wolfe refuses. Wolfe's orchids are then subjected to heavy machine gun fire. Ultimately, Wolfe solves the case without involving Zeck.

"In The Best Of Families" sees Wolfe take on a case for Mrs. Barry Rackham involving her husband. Zeck has a fake bomb delivered to Wolfe, then orders him to drop the case. Wolfe refuses. Wolfe then retires as a private detective and disappears. [For the rest, read the book.]

Answer: Marko Vukcic

In "A Family Affair", Archie Goodwin remarks that "The top floor at Rusterman's restaurant was once the living quarters of Marko Vukcic, its owner, who had been Wolfe's boyhood friend in Montenegro and one of [the few men] who called him by his first name".

In "The Black Mountain" we learn from Archie "that for years he had dined once a month at Wolfe's table, and Wolfe and I had dined once a month at his restaurant". In "In The Best Of Families", when Wolfe announces his retirement from the detective business and disappears, he visits Vukcic, arranges for the disposition of his orchids and his live-in staff, leaves instructions for Archie, gives Vukcic a complete power of attorney with instructions on how to use it, and tells Vukcic to put his house up for sale. And in "The Black Mountain", Wolfe states: "Under my friend's will, I am executor of his estate and trustee ad interim. I am not a legatee".

Answer: Beer

In the initial Nero Wolfe story, "Fer-De-Lance", the first words Wolfe utters are, "Where's the beer?" Hoping "to give up the bootleg beer which for years he had bought in barrels," he is sampling some 49 types of legal 3.2 beer to find a palatable one, and has decided "that six quarts a day was unnecessary...and thereafter he would limit himself to five".

His typical routine was to ring his buzzer twice to signal Fritz to bring beer unopened, to open it himself, pour it into a glass, let the foam settle a bit, and then drink [see "Prisoner's Base": "He got his eighteen-carat opener from the drawer, uncapped a bottle, and poured....Wolfe let the foam subside a little, not too much, lifted the glass, and took two healthy swallows".] If Wolfe had a favorite beer, the only reference seems to be in "Fer-de-Lance" when he tells Fritz, "Some port for Dr. Bradford.

A bottle of Remmers for me".

Answer: Some Buried Caesar

In "Some Buried Caesar", seeking shelter following a car accident while on their way to exhibit orchids at the Crowfield Agricuture Exposition, Wolfe and Archie end up on top of a rock in a pasture with a very large bull. With some instructions from Wolfe, when the bull is distracted Archie runs through the pasture and jumps over the fence. After Wolfe is rescued, a girl in yellow slacks tells Archie, "Come on, Escamillo [toreador in Bizet's "Carmen"], I'll show you the phone....I'm Lily Rowan". Lily Rowan appears throughout the novel and her relationship with Archie Goodwin becomes increasingly close, while Wolfe must deal with the proposed slaughter of a champion bull to feed customers at a series of fast food restaurants, a neighbor apparently gored to death by the bull, another death at the Exposition, and anthrax.

Lily Rowan also has significant roles in such stories as "The Rodeo Murder", that centers on her New York penthouse [published in "Three At Wolfe's Door"], "Death Of A Dude", that takes place on her ranch in Montana, and "In The Best Of Families", where she tells Archie, "I'm the only woman in America who has necked with Nero Wolfe....He has a flair".

Answer: The Silent Speaker / Please Pass The Guilt

In "The Silent Speaker", Archie Goodwin comments that Wolfe has "to [pay] the salaries of Fritz Brenner [chef], Charley the cleaning man, Theodore Horstmann the orchid tender, and me".

In "Please Pass The Guilt", Goodwin remarks, "I don't know if I have ever mentioned that the three employees of the Midtown Home Service Corporation who come once a week are always male because Wolfe insists on it".

"The Silent Speaker" involves Wolfe in the conflict between the Bureau Of Price Regulation (BPR) and the National Industrial Association (NIA), missing dictation cylinders, inter-agency intrigue, a threat to Inspector Cramer's career, and a few murders.

Wolfe must deal in "Please Pass The Guilt" with whether a bomb that blows up a TV executive was meant for him or someone else, a man who ends up in the psychiatric ward because he can't wash the blood off his hands, corporation politics and intrigue, a secretary, and further bloodshed.

Answer: Robert Goldsborough

Robert Goldsborough's first Nero Wolfe novel was "Murder In E Minor" (April, 1986). Wolfe deals with folks from his Montenegro days, including Milan Stevans, conductor of the New York Symphony orchestra, Milan's estranged wife, Alexandria Adjari, and Milan's great-niece, Maria Radovich. For Maria, Wolfe agrees to investigate the threatening letters she says that Milan has been receiving. Conflicts within the orchestra appear. And Milan is murdered.

Between 1986 and 2017, Goldsborough has written a dozen Wolfe novels.