About the author: Rex Stout (1886 – 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and 39 novellas between 1934 and 1975. (wikipedia). (bibliography)
Major characters:
Matthew Blount, her father, charged with murder
Anna Blount, her strangely-attractive mother
Paul Jerin, the chess savant
Bernard Nash, the Gambit Club steward
Tony Laghi, the Gambit Club cook
The Messengers:
1. Charles W. Yerkes, a banker2. Ernst Hausman, a broker3. Morton Farrow, Sally's cousin4. Dr. Victor Avery
Locale: New York City
Synopsis: Nero Wolfe has a visit from Sarah "Sally" Blount, who hires him to help her father, Matthew Blount, get out from under a murder charge. The death happened at a meeting of The Gambit Chess Club. Chess whiz Paul Jerin was playing a "blindfold" game against twelve members of the club, twelve individual simultaneous games. There was no literal blindfold - he was in the adjacent library room and four messengers would carry the moves to him and take his responses.
Jerin's custom was to drink hot chocolate while playing. Blount, who was observing the play, brought him a pot of chocolate which turned out to contain arsenic, and Jerin died after drinking some.
The only persons who had opportunity to administer the poison were Blount, the four messengers, the steward Bernard Nash, and the cook Tony Laghi.
Review:
This book is chess-centric, but you need not know about chess in order to enjoy it. There are a few incidental play references. There is a small cast of characters, and it is mentioned a few times that the killer is one of the seven (Blount, Nash, Laghi, and the four messengers) and that turns out to be correct.
The big puzzle is how did the arsenic get into the chocolate? The solution is a clever Agatha Christie-like move.
This is nice tight little read.
Also see this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block.
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