litlover12

I was sorry to hear this morning that Maury Chaykin had passed away on his 61st birthday. Apparently he played quite a variety of roles, but for me he will always be Nero Wolfe -- the definitive Nero Wolfe. R.I.P.

I've finished Too Many Cooks. It looks as if being snowed in is going to help immeasurably in the speedy completion of Operation Book Binge!

This particular entry in the Nero Wolfe series was well up to the mark. I did not guess the murderer correctly: It came down to two suspects, and after a little wavering, I picked the wrong one. So kudos to Mr. Stout for so cleverly deceiving me. For that, and for finding a creative and plausible way of getting the famously sedentary detective out of his New York brownstone and all the way down to West Virginia -- and furthermore, for putting him in some highly unique and interesting situations once he gets there -- I'll give this one 4.5 out of 5 stars. When it looked like everything was pointing straightforwardly toward one person, I was planning to give it four stars, but the successful deception earns it another half star.

At the end of the book is a fragment from a Nero Wolfe book written posthumously by another author, which is so bad that I was tempted to take away that half star again. But after all, that's not Mr. Stout's fault. So I just pretended it wasn't really part of the book at all, and let things be.

Next up: Curiosities of Literature by John Sutherland.

First of all, I bought a Rex Stout book that I already had. (Can I help it if the covers of all the Nero Wolfe books look more or less alike?) So I decided to put it up for sale on Amazon. After quite some time, Three for the Chair finally sold. I went to ship it today, and realized that I had put the wrong book up for sale. The book of which I had two copies was Three Doors to Death.

Can I help it if the titles of all the Nero Wolfe books sound more or less alike?

*facepalm*