Death of an Art Collector

March 18, 2019
Set in the late 1950s, Goldsborough’s disappointing 14th Nero Wolfe mystery (after 2018’s The Battered Badge) finds Wolfe’s assistant, Archie Goodwin, attending a fundraising dinner at the Waldorf Astoria to benefit the nearly completed Guggenheim Museum. Archie sits at a table that includes affluent art collector Arthur Wordell, who’s expected to donate most of his collection to the new museum. Two weeks after the event, Wordell falls to his death from the 20th floor of his Manhattan office building. Since the dead man was in the habit of sitting on his window ledge to take in the view, the police believe that the fall was accidental, but Wordell’s daughter is certain that her father was pushed. Archie helps round up the suspects, many of whom shared his table at the fund-raiser, including the curator of Wordell’s collection. As usual, the scenes where Wolfe interrogates the suspects are effective, but the climax, in which he reveals the killer’s identity, falls flat. Nonetheless, Goldsborough convincingly simulates the prose and characterizations of Wolfe’s creator, Rex Stout (1886–1975). Fans will hope for a return to form next time. Agent: Erik Simon, Martha Kaplan Agency.