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Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:Jerin is a mental freak—a man capable of successfully playing a dozen simultaneous chess games against first-rate players while he himself is out of sight of any of the boards. It is while thus engaged that he is killed. A millionaire—his opponent in more realms than chess—is accused, and Nero Wolfe is given what appears to be the most hopeless case he and Archie Goodwin have ever tackled.You need to know nothing about chess to follow this show more tale, but some understanding of beautiful mothers and daughters will help.
“It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore.”—The New York Times Book Review
A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America’s greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained—and puzzled—millions of mystery fans around the world. Now, with his perambulatory man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable master himself, Rex Stout. show less
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This is one of those mysteries where the reader really should figure it out, but Stout has the red herrings coming so fast and furious that I really lost track of the obvious suspect. I guess that's why these are fun to read again and again.
Gambit is about a murder at a chess tournament in which supposedly only a small number of people had opportunity to commit the crime. This novel was irritating because from the beginning to virtually the climax Wolf steadfastly ignored the person I figured had the best opportunity. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was how the murderer could have planned the murder in advance, which was necessary for the plot. Wolf is a genius—he should have spotted the most likely suspect and been working on the “how” from the beginning instead of waiting to be told the how before coming up with the who. In spite of my irritation--any Nero Wolfe is better than no Nero Wolfe!
Gambit is the first Nero Wolfe mystery that I've read. The thing that I found most interesting about it were the characters. Nero Wolfe is every bit the enigmatic genius that he is purported to be. It was hard to imagine a private detective who never leaves his house, and has another detective who does all of his leg work, but Wolfe manages to make it work. I also enjoyed the character of Cramer, who comes off as the cool, tough guy. He's a bit more stereotypical than Wolfe, but he is still well developed .
The aspect of the book that I found least interesting was the actual mystery part of this. Not being a chess player, I had no concept of the runners and go-betweens that were critical to the novel. My concept of chess is two people show more sitting in front of a board facing each other. All of these extraneous people seemed pointless. Also, the killing and motive for killing seems so thin and weak. I think it takes something extraordinary for a regular person to kill another. In this case, it seemed like Stout wanted to come up with a murder surrounding a chess game but ran out of good reasons to have one human being kill another and what resulted was this flimsy garbage. All the same, it was not a bad read, more in terms of character than plot.
Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity show less
The aspect of the book that I found least interesting was the actual mystery part of this. Not being a chess player, I had no concept of the runners and go-betweens that were critical to the novel. My concept of chess is two people show more sitting in front of a board facing each other. All of these extraneous people seemed pointless. Also, the killing and motive for killing seems so thin and weak. I think it takes something extraordinary for a regular person to kill another. In this case, it seemed like Stout wanted to come up with a murder surrounding a chess game but ran out of good reasons to have one human being kill another and what resulted was this flimsy garbage. All the same, it was not a bad read, more in terms of character than plot.
Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity show less
It looks like a slam-dunk of a case. Jerin was known to drink hot chocolate during games. Blount was the one who provided it...and the one who removed the cup and pot, rinsed the out and brought up new when he heard the Jerin was not feeling well. Suspicious? Very. But Miss Sally Blount felt different. She was positive her father was innocent and wanted Nero and Archie to prove it. It would be the first good thing she had done in her life.
The murder had taken place in at the posh Gambit Club, a chess club for snobs. Jerin will play a dozen games at the same time without seeing the boards. Instead he will sit in another room and four messengers will bring him the moves and relay his moves to the other players. Blount brings Jerin his show more cocoa and leaves the room. When Jerin complains of sickness, Blount is the one to remove the cup, saucer and pot, rinse them and bring a fresh serving. Why did Blount rinse the utensils? This action puts Blount in the guilty seat as far as Inspector Cramer is concerned.
Wolf is convinced that Blount is innocent, not just because of what Miss Blount tells him, but also because of the $22,000 she gives him to solve the case. Wolf hates to lose a fee.
There are possible suspects: the messengers Yerkes - a retired banker, Farrow - the nephew of Mrs. Blount, Hausman - a retired broker, Kalmus - Blount's lawyer; but do they have a reason or the time to poison Jerin's cocoa? And what about Mrs. Blount who men find irresistible?
Wolf finally decides that he needs to come up with a gambit to flush out the murder and keep his fee. show less
The murder had taken place in at the posh Gambit Club, a chess club for snobs. Jerin will play a dozen games at the same time without seeing the boards. Instead he will sit in another room and four messengers will bring him the moves and relay his moves to the other players. Blount brings Jerin his show more cocoa and leaves the room. When Jerin complains of sickness, Blount is the one to remove the cup, saucer and pot, rinse them and bring a fresh serving. Why did Blount rinse the utensils? This action puts Blount in the guilty seat as far as Inspector Cramer is concerned.
Wolf is convinced that Blount is innocent, not just because of what Miss Blount tells him, but also because of the $22,000 she gives him to solve the case. Wolf hates to lose a fee.
There are possible suspects: the messengers Yerkes - a retired banker, Farrow - the nephew of Mrs. Blount, Hausman - a retired broker, Kalmus - Blount's lawyer; but do they have a reason or the time to poison Jerin's cocoa? And what about Mrs. Blount who men find irresistible?
Wolf finally decides that he needs to come up with a gambit to flush out the murder and keep his fee. show less
This was a second reading, but it remained just as good. I love the Nero Wolfe mysteries for their clever language and the wonderful reader (Michael Prichard) Great escape reading.
A rather unpleasant young chess genius is poisoned while playing simultaneous games at an upscale New York chess club. Nero Wolfe investigates and ultimately learns that the murder was in act a gambit --a sacrifice intended to win a quite different prize.
Archie and Nero hard at work. A little wordy in places, but then they both like to talk. Murder at a chess club. The suspect's daughter hires Wolfe to clear her father.
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Author Information
377+ Works 50,427 Members
Author Rex Stout was born on December 1, 1886. A child prodigy with a gift for mathematics, Stout drifted as he became an adult, holding odd jobs in many places---cook, cabinetmaker, bellhop, hotel manager, salesman, bookkeeper, and even a guide in a pueblo. But his true talent lay in storytelling; he sold his first story, about William Howard show more Taft, in 1912. His most famous creation is Nero Wolfe, a 286-pound detective genius who, with sidekick Archie Goodwin, can often solve a case without leaving his room. It is the way in which the puzzle is solved that intrigues Nero Wolfe, who is much like Sherlock Holmes in his ability to use deductive reasoning. More than 60 million copies (in 24 languages) of Stout's books have been sold. Stout writes quickly, drawing upon a lifetime of impressions. He neither uses an outline nor revises; he lets his characters take over as the story develops. The classy, erudite Nero Wolfe presents for readers an alternative to the hard-boiled branch of the genre. He died on October 27, 1975 (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Rex Stout has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.
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Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Il giallo Mondadori (756)
Öölane (19)
I classici del giallo [Mondadori] (346, 999)
Den svarte serie (218)
SaPo (392)
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Gambit
- Original title
- Gambit
- Original publication date
- 1962-10-12
- People/Characters
- Nero Wolfe; Archie Goodwin; Orrie Cather; Lon Cohen; Lionel T. Cramer (Inspector); Fred Durkin (show all 18); Saul Panzer; Purley Stebbins (Sergeant); Victor Avery (doctor); Anna Blount; Matthew Blount; Sally Blount; Morton Farrow; Ernst Hausman; Daniel Kalmus; Tony Laghi (cook); Bernard Nash (steward); Charles W. Yerkes
- Important places
- New York, New York, USA
- Related movies
- Scacco al re (2012 | IMDb)
- First words
- At twenty-seven minutes past eleven that Monday morning in February, Lincoln's Birthday, I opened the door between the office and the front room, entered and said, “Miss Blount is here.”
- Quotations
- Which he loves most, food or words, is a toss-up.
“Do you use ‘infer’ and ‘imply’ interchangeably, Miss Blount?”
She did fine. She said simply, “No.”
“This book says you may. Pfui.”
“That's a little far-fetched.”
“Murder is usually far-fetched.” - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)You have been delivered from the ignominy of convicting an innocent man, and from the embarrassment of aresting a guilty man who couldn't be convicted.
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- ISBNs
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