The Black Mountain

Nero Wolfe becomes his own client when his lifelong friend, Marko Vukcic, is killed. Wolfe's search for Vukcic's killer takes him back to his native Montenegro and to Vukcic's connections in an underground political movement. Since it would be dangerous for Wolfe to appear in Montenegro as himself, he and his assistant, Archie Goodwin, use assumed names and identities. Between the physically demanding terrain and the risk of discovery of their true purpose and identities, will Wolfe and Archie survive their adventure?

I am a huge fan of the Nero Wolfe series starring Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton, but I hadn't read any of the books until now. If one book is anything to judge by, the TV series captured the essence of the books. Archie show more Goodwin is the first-person narrator, and I heard Timothy Hutton's voice in my head as I read. In this book, Archie was dependent on Wolfe as a translator since he doesn't speak a language other than English. Archie's thoughts during conversations he couldn't understand provide comic relief in some tense situations.

It never occurred to Wolfe or Danilo to give a damn whether I had any notion of what they were talking about, which I hadn't, but Meta couldn't stand a guest at her table feeling out of it, so about once a minute she turned her black eyes to me just to include me in. I was reminded of a dinner party Lily Rowan had once thrown at Rusterman's where one of the guests was an Eskimo, and I tried to remember whether she had been as gracious to him as Meta Vukcic was being to me, but I couldn't, probably because I had completely ignored him myself. I resolved that if I ever got back to New York and was invited to a meal where someone like an Eskimo was present, I would smile at him or her at least every fifth bite.

This might have been my first Nero Wolfe novel, but it won't be my last! show less

This book is a huge departure from the typical Nero Wolfe formula, more a cold war spy thriller than a mystery. Most of the book takes place in Italy and Montenegro, far from the cozy brownstone on 35th street. Stout lets his political views come forth, with Wolfe delivering lengthy polemics against authoritarian regimes, condemning Tito, Stalin, and McCarthy, and going as far as reciting a rather lengthy section of the Constitution and Bill of Rights out loud.

Archie is way out of his element, even more so than when he had to visit LA in book 19. Unable to speak the language, he's forced to rely on Wolfe to navigate them through the hazards, both political and physical.

While it was a nice change of pace and an interesting period show more piece, I look forward to returning to the standard formula in the next one. show less

Kudos to Rex Stout for grappling with the Poirot Problem: What do you do when your series detective, to whom you whimsically gave an exotic foreign background, becomes so popular that fans demand to know about his past? Agatha Christie created Ariadne Oliver to vent. Stout tops her by killing off Nero Wolfe's oldest friend, forcing the sedentary sleuth not just out of his house but onto a plane to Montenegro.

This has to be the oddest book in the Wolfe/Goodwin series. Nero Wolfe, the legendary couch potato, transformed to a mountain goat? Archie -- posing as his son -- carries the luggage along with the narrative, which he's reconstructed after the fact from Wolfe's translations. I learned more than I could absorb about the geography and show more politics of that volatile region, which would soon explode into larger wars than the one our sleuths must navigate. The story is action-packed, full of disguises, deceptions, betrayals, and violence, suspenseful all the way back to New York.

So, more of a thriller than a Golden Age mystery. No women, except for the occasional glimpsed-from-afar wife or daughter. I enjoyed The Black Mountain, and I'd love to ask Rex Stout how he came to write it, but I'll be happy to rejoin Wolfe and Goodwin in Manhattan. show less

In most Nero Wolfe stories and novels, Nero does not leave his house. When he does, it is usually either because of his orchids, food or Archie - and even then, he goes somewhere, finds a place to sit and just does what he usually does in his office. And then there is this novel.

Marko Vukcic, the restaurant owner and Wolfe's best friend since they were boys in Montenegro, is killed. Once Nero Wolfe gets the news, he surprises everyone by showing up at the scene and then even going to the morgue for the first time in his life. Unfortunately, none allows him to even start figuring out what happened so he returns home - to a visit of a woman he had not seen for a long time - his adopted daughter. Before long it starts looking very likely show more that the murder is tied to Marko's work with an illegal organization back in Montenegro. Once a second death is reported, Nero is off, with Archie of course, to Italy and from there illegally into Montenegro.

It is a frustrating novel in more than one way - from Archie belly-aching every second page about how he cannot understand a word and needs Nero to translate or how unusually Wolfe behaves to characters which reads more like caricatures than real people. Traipsing around the mountains of Albania and Montenegro is not what you expect in this series - and the solution of the mystery almost falls into out laps (and Nero's) out of nowhere. We get to learn a lot more about Nero's past but that does not really help the novel much.

Maybe if the narration had shifted to Nero, it would have worked a lot better - the novel is upside down on who does what - with Archie not speaking anything but English (and he even has issues with the announcements in London where he asks what language they were in just to be told that it was English) but the narration stays with Archie and his reports based on what Nero translates (or does not). With Archie narrating, things just get annoying - his style works in New York but here his cleverness and puns misfire more often than not and the constant grumbling starts to get on one's nerves.

Definitely not my favorite book from the series. show less

Less a mystery than what I would call an "adventure novel." Disappointing as a mystery, and the situation, alas, deprives us of so much of what makes Nero Wolfe books so appealing: the brownstone, the regular characters, Archie investigating on his own, Wolfe sitting in his chair pondering facts, the round-up of suspects and the big reveal. We're even cheated on a lot of potential Archie/Nero sniping, since Archie only finds out what was said in his presence after the fact. Despite all those failings, this will remain one of those core, essential books for hardcore Nero Wolfe fans to read, along with books like Over My Dead Body and In the Best of Families, because the mystery hits home with Wolfe, and it explores and reveals a lot of show more Nero Wolfe's personal history. The first chapter, in particular, is extraordinarily moving for long-time readers. (At least it was for me.) Don't start with this one, for goodness' sake! Read it after you've gotten to know and love the characters. show less

Sometimes mystery writers try to go outside their area and put beloved characters into a spy novel rather than a mystery. Sometimes it works, but not this time. The whole mystique of Nero Wolfe is that he never leaves his house. Putting him in a physically demanding setting and having Archie handicapped by language issues makes for a frustrating story. It was comforting to know that Archie was equally frustrated.

While this entry in the Nero Wolfe series is more of a thriller than a mystery, it also features Wolfe voluntarily leaving his New York brownstone to return to his native Montenegro in order to find the killer of his close friend Marko Vukcic. As Archie comments, he and Wolfe end up exchanging positions (primarily because Archie doesn't speak Italian or Serbian or any other foreign language).