Customer Reviews

Tales of the Black Widowers

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The Black Widowers meet once a month at the Milano Restaurant, taking the task of host in rotation. Each month the host brings a guest for grilling, traditionally beginning with 'How do you justify your existence?' and ending with ferreting out some mystery. After the six regular members have cleared the ground, the seventh - Henry, the waiter - always solves the problem.

Most of Asimov's Black Widowers stories first saw the light of day in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (EQMM), except those written to round out collections. EQMM retitled half of them; Asimov has reverted all but one title change. The club is based on the real-life Trap Door Spiders, a stag club created so that the members could meet without involving one friend's disagreeable wife. Asimov, as a member, has based some of the Widowers on fellow club-members.

I find the by-play between the Black Widowers entertaining in itself. Drake is the original reason for the no-women rule. Halstead, high school mathematics teacher, has an ongoing hobby of writing limericks for each chapter of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Trumbull works for an unspecified agency as a code-breaker; when he's not host, he's usually chief griller, and is the most apt to shout down the other members when they stray off-topic. Avalon is dignified, pedantic - good for the odd spot of in-character exposition. At the other extreme, Gonzalo, the youngest, is usually eager for each puzzle to appear. As a professional artist, he caricatures each guest, and enjoys trading insults with Rubin (mystery writer and deputy chief griller). Rubin also finds reason, at least once per book, to libel another writer of his acquaintance: one Isaac Asimov. :)

"The Acquisitive Chuckle" - Host: Avalon. Hanley Bartram believes that, as a private investigator, his clients find his existence justified - when he's successful. He asked Avalon for an invitation because he thought the Widowers might help him settle an old case. Anderson, a grasping character, was sure that his fanatically honest ex-business partner had scored off him by taking *something* from his house - but he couldn't figure out *what*.

"Ph As in Phony" - (EQMM = 'The Phony Ph.D.' to avoid confusion with the Graftonesque titles of another author.) Host: Trumbull, whose guest is a Ph.D. in chemistry at Berry, where Drake did his graduate work. Drake is reminded of a fellow student - mediocre in every way - who somehow scored a 96% from the fire-breathing Professor St. George. How did he manage to cheat?

"Truth to Tell" - (EQMM = 'The Man Who Never Told a Lie') Host: Gonzalo, whose guest (the title character) is chief suspect in a theft from his uncle's firm. His uncle knows he wouldn't lie, but without a plausible scenario of what *did* happen, Sands' career is at a dead end.

"Go, Little Book!" - (EQMM = 'The Matchbook Collector') Host: Rubin, whose guest had lunch with the title character the previous day - someone Trumbull's been after for months, who has an unbroken system of passing coded messages. (Obviously predates ultra-strong encryption.)

"Early Sunday Morning" - (EQMM = 'The Biological Clock') Host: Halstead, who complains that the mysteries of the last 4 sessions have been penny-ante, and tries to drum a murder story out of the other Widowers (he hasn't invited a guest). Gonzalo, as it turns out, blames himself for his twin sister's murder - because his biological clock wakes him at eight every morning.

"The Obvious Factor" - Host: Trumbull. Eldridge, a parapsychological investigator, takes on the Widowers' challenge that *nothing* could convince them of parapsychological phenomena.

"The Pointing Finger" - Host: Avalon. Caroline Levy's grandpa kept his savings in negotiable bonds for safety; living with her and her husband Simon, he hid them in the house (insurance that he'd be looked after). But his fatal stroke deprived him of speech to indicate where he'd left them last...

"Miss What?" - (EQMM = 'A Warning to Miss Earth') Host: Gonzalo, whose guest is a plainclothes detective (it's implied that they met during the murder investigation of 'Early Sunday Morning'). A death threat couched in Biblical phrasing was delivered to the Miss Earth contest - but which girl is the target?

"The Lullaby of Broadway" - Host: Rubin, who as absolute monarch has decreed that this month's meeting will be held in his apartment - including Henry, in his role as club member rather than waiter. Rubin throughout his rather harried serving of the meal dribbles out bits and pieces of a story of being disturbed by random hammering at odd hours - until Henry finally calls him on it and asks to grill *him*. :)

"Yankee Doodle Went to Town" - Host: Avalon, bringing an old army buddy as a guest. Davenheim is trying to crack a ring of 'soldiers' who're stealing - he'd have more respect for outright traitors. But it galls him that one of the suspects keeps humming the same tune during interrogation, and it means *something*, but what?

"The Curious Omission" - Host: Halstead. Jeremy Atwood's late friend Lyon was a board game fiend who wanted to play one last time. Lyon left him $10000 in a safety deposit box - if Jeremy can decipher the accompanying clue to the bank's whereabouts within one year: 'The curious omission in Alice.' (I congratulate Asimov on a believable dying clue/missing legacy scenario).

"Out of Sight" - Host: Trumbull. At the last moment, Waldemar Long had to cancel his lecture during a scientific conference/cruise, since the material was still classified. Somebody, however, got at his lecture notes between his notification at the dinner table and his return to his cabin - and Long's career is over unless he can show how anyone could have had opportunity.

Isaac Asimov's novels and short stories are among my favourite. The first three FOUNDATION books are better than most contemporary works of science fiction, and I, ROBOT is, in my opinion, the best collection of robot stories ever. Even his stories in THE EARLY ASIMOV are a lot of fun.

It is because Asimov has been so good that this collection of puzzle stories was surprising. Asimov clearly has a passion for puzzles but his ability to incorporate that element into a good story is not demonstrated by this book. As one reviewer mentioned, you'll find out all sorts of interesting trivia by reading these stories but you shouldn't expect to arrive at the solutions to the puzzles through deduction. Simply put, if you want to play along (and who doesn't when reading a mystery?), you'll need to know a lot of throw-away information.

Another quibble I had with the Black Widower stories was that the cast consists of Mastermind champions. No piece of information is too obscure or esoteric for the regulars. The alleged 'dumb one' in the group (Mario Gonzalo) is surely one of the brightest dimwits ever to appear in print. In today's world of dumbed-down entertainment, this is refreshing but it also puts the characters on a different playing field than many of the readers. I, for one, can only dream of knowing as much as Gonzalo does.

I can only recommend the Black Widower stories to die-hard Asimov fans. If you're just a casual fan looking for good Asimov mysteries, try the first three robot novels: THE CAVES OF STEEL, THE NAKED SUN, and ROBOTS OF DAWN.

Happy reading!

Isaac Asimov is unquestionably one of the greatest science fiction writers of the 20th century. Unfortunately, his attempts at writing mysteries did not produce the same quality of work as his efforts in SF. TALES OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS demonstrates this with puzzle after puzzle that requires knowledge of trivia (the references are sometimes painfully obscure) rather than logical deduction to solve. Trivial Pursuit players might enjoy these stories but fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie should pass on them.

This is a review of the entire series of Black Widower books.

Isaac Asimov's contribution to the mystery genre include these short mysteries in the style of Agatha Christie. These tales all follow the same format. The Black Widowers, a fictional men-only dinner club, meet monthly at a restaurant to dine, socialize, and interview the host's guest. The guest (or occasionally the host) presents a puzzle drawn from his personal or professional life, and the Black Widowers attempt some armchair detective work before Henry, the waiter, invariably deduces the solution. These are not forensics and footprints crime cases, obviously. In fact, in many instances, no crime took place. There was the story of a man whose wife disappeared from a restaurant and turned up at home safe and sound, one in which a man who is convinced that his lover has cheated at an academic exam, and several instances of guests who need to unravel a riddle to claim an inheritance from a deceased, idiosyncratic friend. Etc. Generally, the solution rests upon peeling away irrelevant information to reveal a simple, obvious explanation. Kind of like Miss Marple meets Encyclopedia Brown (historical facts and trivia have been the crux of the issue on many occasions).

However, it's the structure in addition to the (rather mundane) mysteries that makes these stories so appealing. The six (seven, counting Hentry) members of the Black Widowers are caricatures, but nonetheless solidly consistent in their characterization. (I wouldn't say that any of the regulars involve themselves in any sort of character arc or personal growth, but that's not really the point. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple never really grew, either.) My problem with them is that Asimov relies too much on the same idiosyncracies, such that a number of people are loud and opinionated, and as they all participate equally in all conversations on all subjects, it becomes difficult to differentiate between them. Nonetheless, their very presence is reassuring; when you read a Black Widower story, you know exactly what you'll get. The stories generally devote half their length to whatever subject Asimov feels like discussing, whether it's extrasensory perception or extraterrestrial life or English grammar, and I found that just as enjoyable as the puzzle-solving half.

Most of the stories were published in various mystery or science fiction magazines before being collected by Asimov in several 12-story anthologies. Asimov himself writes a little blurb after each one describing its history, and his comments are charming to read. The last book was published after Asimov's death and collects a few stories that were not anthologized in the previous volumes. It also contains a rather sappy foreward by Harlan Ellison, somewhat cluttered with in-jokes and personal references, reprints of the "best of" stories as selected by Charles Ardai, and two original stories not by Asimov. I actually haven't finished reading this last one yet. Once I do, there will be no more Black Widower stories, and they have been such superb comfort fare that I find myself saving the last few for when I truly need them.

I have devoured Asimov's Sci-fi for years, and only when I ran out of books and short stories written by him alone did I accidentally run into his mysteries. They show a more playful side of Asimov that is a real treat and and a side that certainly helps temper his "great brain", "prolific writer" image. The stories are great mind teasers wherein Isaac plays with the reader. Great fun!

Do you like intellectual puzzles? Do you like "closed room" mysteries? Do you like the atmosphere of a 19th century gentleman's club? If you like any of the above, this book of short stories is for you.

These delightful tales are authored by talented writer Isaac Asimov. And while his main claim to fame is in the field of Science Fiction, he is equally adept at writing articles and stories which have nothing to do with the world of science ... and it shows in these groups of mysteries.

The background for each of the adventures is in a mythical restaurant called the Milano somewhere in the streets of uptown Manhattan. There are six members to this men's only club which meets once a month to enjoy a sumptuous dinner and comradeship for the evening. Additionally, there is a seventh person, the waiter, who plays a part in the club. Each monthly tryst is hosted by one of the members who is permitted to bring a guest with him. The only stipulation is that the guest must not be a female. The guest is not expected to bring a puzzle or mystery with him, but they invariably do .. to the enjoyment of all.

The tales each have the same general framework about which the story is set. The guest is introduced to the membership during the before dinner drinks where his problem or mystery is often touched lightly on. Dinner is served with small talk about some facet of one of the member's interests or experiences and then the guest is grilled, as a condition of the free meal, with the after dinner drinks. It is here that the puzzle is laid out for the membership to mull over and debate. After all have exhausted the possible answers to no avail, the waiter will come up with a simple direct explanation which often has been obvious the entire time. In fact, part of the fun of these stories is for the reader to try and reason out the puzzle before the waiter announces it at the end of the story. Dr Asimov's writing skill makes the reader feel like he (or she) is actually part of the dinner.

The mysteries are all trite and unimportant for the most part, involving things like how did a student cheat on an exam, what did a thief take from an apartment full of odds and ends, or how a message might be transmitted. But don't let the triviality of the puzzle turn you away as Dr Asimov has found clever twists and turns in some of the most common of occurrences.

I believe you'll be enthralled and entertained by these stories, unable to put the book down as you read "just one more tale". Soon you'll be through the book and hunger for the next volume in the series. There is no necessary order to read the books in as each story stands on its own, however, I would recommend that you read the first collection first (Tales of the Black Widowers) as it sets the stage for the books that follow.

Great entertainment for a cold winter's evening or a rainy day, these books can be enjoyed by anyone from the age of about 12 up. There is no violence, sex, or language in the books, but a younger person probably does not possess the reading skills to appreciate the writing.

Highly recommended.

~Paul~

The Black Widowers is a group of men who meet once a month to engage in animated discussion. Although superficially it may appear that their relationships are tense, they are in fact quite fond of each other. Hosting the dinner is a revolving responsibility and the host is allowed to bring a guest. Once the dinner is complete, the guest is grilled, with the line opening the grilling, "How do you justify your existence?" This leads to a puzzle, which is bantered back and forth between the members. Once they reach an impasse, Henry the devoted waiter to the group, steps in and comes up with the solution.
These stories revolve around the spirit of the chase, the style and tactics of the banter between the members as they throw ideas out and maneuver themselves into an apparent impasse. Finally, after this point is reached, Henry very politely interjects or is simply asked for his opinion. These are not powerful, intense mysteries and there is only the slightest hint of violence. They are generally short stories about the type of puzzle that regular people would encounter and be forced to solve.

I have devoured Asimov's Sci-fi for years, and only when I ran out of books and short stories written by him alone did I accidentally run into his mysteries. They show a more playful side of Asimov that is a real treat and and a side that certainly helps temper his "great brain", "prolific writer" image. The stories are great mind teasers wherein Isaac plays with the reader. Great fun!

The stories contained in this volume revolve around the Black Widowers, a group of men, who met monthly for a dinner resided over by the waiter Henry. Each month a member brings a special guest, and the stories are about their mystery. The members are drawn from people who were friends of Isaac Asimov. The mysteryies are all entertaining, as are the solutions. All of the personalities seem to engage you in their antics.

It is not hard to see what the attraction of stories like these is. It is the attraction that various series used to have for me in the weekly boys' comics that I read at age 10. Familiar characters reappeared in each episode, saying and doing much the same sort of things every time. It was comfortable, it was escapist, it was predictable, and obviously the mentality survives into adult life as a non-adult component. For grown-ups Asimov's scenario is a dining club attended by middle-aged, middle-class and comfortably-off educated men escaping from their wives and from the challenges and tensions that are all part of the relations between the sexes. No wonder it has been popular.

It has been many years since I last read Asimov. I remember enjoying The Gods Themselves but being mightily bored by his robots. As a writer of fiction Asimov seemed to me to lack both the imagination and the storytelling gift of his friend and rival Arthur C Clarke. I liked his didactic stuff much better. Both he and Clarke were important educators of an entire generation or more than one generation, elucidating the obscurities of physics and astronomy to a baffled but fascinated general public, and nearly always incorporating such lessons even in their fiction. Asimov in particular specialised in posing and solving conundrums. His robot stories permed various particular applications of his general laws of robotics, but I found more interest in his writing when he played down the fictional elements and went straight for the theory, as in Asimov's Mysteries.

The Tales of the Black Widowers is a kind of lightweight version of the Mysteries. The comfortable little association is attended while eating filet mignon and such like by a Jeeves-like butler called Henry, who always solves the mystery of the evening through application of simple worldly common sense while the overeducated and overfed diners are flailing away in intellectual but ineffectual ways. My basic disappointment with this collection is that the actual puzzles don't seem to me to be very good ones, and Henry's solutions strike me as contrived and as either obvious or unconvincing. The very first story bombed for me right away - the answer was staring me in the face after a few pages. I was not bright enough to spot the solution of the one about the phony PhD, but I felt I ought to have been, and I'm sure many others must have been. The plot of Truth to Tell is a non-sequitur. The reasoning takes its start-point from lies told in order to preserve a more important truth, and concludes with something else entirely, the verbal formulation `Did you steal the cash or the bonds?' to which the guest who Cannot Tell a Lie (come off it!) answers No. What he had stolen was the cash AND the bonds, and no ordinary speaker of English, in a courtroom or anywhere else, would have understood the question in that sense. That sense would have been familiar only to programmers in COBOL. In COBOL an expression of the form `not...A or B' is understood by the computer as meaning not some nonexistent entity called `A or B' - you have to say `not...A and B', which the machine will interpret as `not A and not B'. Human beings don't think like this. Another episode, in which the proponent of the puzzle was simply falsifying the clues, just struck me as naff.

I derived very little satisfaction from such hermeneutics, I must say. The charm of the book is in the atmosphere generated by a well-loved author for his large following. When I was young I used to find that he talked about himself too much, and he is still at it here. After each episode we are solemnly informed of his disputes with his original publishers over the title. For goodness sake, who cares? It's impossible to dislike Asimov, but he exasperated me then, and he exasperates me still.