Murder in the Ball Park: A Nero Wolfe Mystery

At the start of Goldsborough’s superb ninth Nero Wolfe mystery (after 2013’s Archie Meets Nero Wolfe: A Prequel), Archie Goodwin, Wolfe’s leg man, is on hand when a sniper takes out New York state senator Orson Milbank at a Dodgers-Giants game at the Polo Grounds in post-WWII Manhattan. The politician had ruffled some feathers with his shifting position on an upstate parkway, including those of a mob boss and of naturalists concerned about the project’s environmental impact. Milbank’s widow, former Hollywood actress Elise DuVal, makes Wolfe an offer he cannot refuse to solve the case after the NYPD fails to make any meaningful progress. The investigation follows the usual dynamic of Rex Stout’s originals, with Archie dutifully reporting back to the sedentary genius before a gathering of the suspects in Wolfe’s West 35th Street brownstone for the satisfying denouement. Agent: Erik Simon, Martha Kaplan Agency. (Jan.)