Curtains for Three

Nero Wolfe solves three impossible crimes with the help of his assistant, Archie Goodwin. In the first, an opera singer dies alone in his studio, apparently of suicide. But there is something odd about the gun. In the second, Wolfe must find a killer among a half dozen suspects with motives but seemingly no opportunity. In the final story, Wolfe must find a killer close to home when a woman is strangled in his office.

Stout writes like a magician. The clues are there, but he distracts the reader from their importance by focusing their attention on other things. The first mystery had me stumped but the solution was so simple once Wolfe described it. In what may be a first for me, I spotted the murderer in the second story. I came close to show more picking out the murderer in the final story, too, but, like a magician, Stout drew my attention away from the important clue I’d noticed. show less

Three novellas, originally published in a magazine. Each of them fun in their own way, but I can't say much without giving things away.
"Gun with Wings," a good puzzle, and the solution seems so simple if you've already read the story several times as I have. :) Archie's descriptions of women are always interesting, sometimes offensive, but accurate for a man of his times and occasionally enlightened.

"Bullet for One," Someday I would like to make a list of Archie's reasons for not getting serious with a beautiful woman. One raises her eyebrows at him, another changed her name from Annie Rooney to Audrey Rooney. Mind you, it isn't the fact that she changed her name, but that she chose Audrey.

"Disguise for Murder," To solve this one, one show more must be conversant in the manners of the 1940s. Another scene that dated this story; Archie in the car locking 3 doors, then getting out & locking the 4th by turning his key in the lock. show less

Curtains for Three contains three novellas first published together in 1950:
Gun with Wings - a famous opera singer is found dead of an apparent gunshot to the head. If he killed himself, why is his widow hiring Wolfe to solve his murder? Especially when all evidence points towards her or her lover. This one was my favorite because the clues to solving the case were right in front of my face the entire time.

Bullet for One - a man is murdered while riding his horse in a local New York City park. A bit of fashion solves the case.

Disguise for Murder - Archie and Nero feel considerably displaced when their home becomes a crime scene and their office is off limits for the duration of the investigation. Archie and Nero without their show more typewriters was amusing. show less

Curtains for Three is the next in Rex Stout's series of Nero Wolfe stories; as with some previous books, it's actually three novellas (from 1948, 1949 and 1950) packaged into one book following their publications in various magazines of the day. This outing includes "The Gun With Wings," wherein an operatic tenor is found dead, an apparent suicide, except that the couple who found the body, his wife and her friend who have just mutually discovered their love for each other, found no gun at the body's feet, as the police later did find; in order to keep their love pure and open, they appeal to Nero Wolfe to find out what really happened to her husband so that they will be free of nagging doubts that one of them murdered him. In "Bullet show more for One," a man with a lot of enemies is shot dead while riding his horse in the early morning in Central Park; five of the six suspects believe the sixth man is the culprit, but he's got an ironclad alibi.... And "Disguise for Murder" features a murderer audaciously attacking and killing a victim in Nero Wolfe's own house, nay, in his very office! You see, a garden reporter for the newspaper has persuaded Wolfe to permit members of the Garden Society to visit his beloved orchids, and so Wolfe is confronted with a packed house, half of which are, gasp, women, and when one of them turns up dead, it's up to Wolfe to discover the killer, if only to make sure that Inspector Cramer will unseal his office pronto so that he can get back to being comfortable again in it.... All of these are fairly slight, as befits the novella form for the most part, but again, they were all fun to read. As always, recommended! show less

As always, the plots are ingenious and the clues fairly given, but these particular stories didn't appeal to me as much as some others.

This collection contains thee stories -- one about the murder or suicide of an opera star who lost his voice, one about the murder of an inventor, and one about a murderer whose disguise is accidentally penetrated during a visit to see Nero Wolfe's orchids. The first one is one of my absolute favorites, involving very nice loving couple (half of which I the widow of the victim).The third story is just a bit kinky --one of the few stories that remind me of Stout's pre-Wolfe phase as the :American Kraft-Ebbing."

Three shorter stories, very Sherlock Holmesish. Wolfe is a bit of a twat, but Archie is hilarious.