Gambit: A Nero Wolfe Mystery [UNABRIDGED] (Audio CD)

by Rex Stout (Author), Michael Prichard (Narrator)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Miss Sarah Blount, better known as Sally, has come to Wolfe to plead for his help with her father’s case. Matthew Blount is charged with poisoning a man to death at the Gambit Club, and all evidence points to his guilt. Sally knows that her father is innocent, but doesn’t trust his lawyer, who seems too interested in her mother. Despite the lack of cooperation by Matthew Blount or the lawyer, Wolfe takes the case, trumping the police with a list of four suspects. But when one of those suspects turns up dead, Wolfe is forced to retrench, so unnerved that he forgoes a fabulous lunch and ignores his treasured orchids. Sally’s increasing interest in Wolfe is only one of many trials he faces in this witty, cleverly plotted tale.

Rex Stout’s literary creation, Nero Wolfe, is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. And, as always, Archie’s assistance as the perennial wise guy and legman complements Wolfe's devotion to orchids, gourmet meals, and his specially constructed brown leather chair. Together, Archie and Wolfe make an entertaining odd couple.

From AudioFile
The great detective swallows his usual distaste for female clients by undertaking a case from Sally Blount, whose father is suspected of killing a chess opponent at the Gambit Club, by arsenic poisoning. Nero Wolfe, aided by his wisecracking legman, Archie Goodwin, turns up four other suspects, though one of them is eliminated by death. It's all enough to put Wolfe off his passion for food and orchids. Not for long. Wolfe solves the case with an ingenious gambit of his own. While this is second-tier Nero Wolfe overall, the masterful Michael Prichard gives his all, raising the audio to a tier-one selection. M.T.B. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America; Unabridged edition (January 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572704411
• ISBN-13: 978-1572704411
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #420,251 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Stout's Best, April 10, 2005

By	John P Bernat (Kingsport, TN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Michael Pritchard's typically outstanding reading of "Gambit" cannot overcome an often-repeated comment about this book: that Rex Stout in the 1960s was on the way down in creative powers.

Gambit was written in 1962 and contains intriguing contemporary references: Bobby Fischer, television news, the cold war. These are always fun, and revealing of Stout's attitudes toward contemporary society. However, some elements of Stout at his best are conspciuously absent.

For one thing, he has Wolfe accepting a case largely because a pretty woman appeals to his vanity concerning his detecting ability and genius. It verges on Wolfe becoming a stereotypicaly dirty old man, and is not satisfactory. Then, the interplay between Cramer and Wolfe portrays Cramer in an uncharacteristially mean-spirited and even loutish manner. The Cramer we know is better than that.

Perhaps worst, though, is the absence of the wise observations we've come to expect from Wolfe. In this one, he gets peevish (not necessarily a bad thing) but also skittish - not like him at all. He shows an indecisive streak which is so inconsistent with the "better Wolfe" that the faithful wonder whether Wolfe should consider nursing home care.

Finally, the plot. If Stout has to have Wolfe explain what a gambit actually is, you can sense trouble coming. The plot outline seems rigged-up and contrived, and the characters seem to have some trouble sticking to it.

Must mention, though, the typically wonderful job Michael Pritchard does with this one. But for that, the audio version would be worth only 2 stars, not three...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mix a 12-game blindfold simul, hot chocolate, and arsenic, May 4, 2002

By	Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Gambit (Mass Market Paperback)

This book was my introduction to Nero Wolfe, so I, like his new client Sally Blount, first encountered him not in his office, but in the front room, feeding Webster's New International Dictionary, Unabridged (3rd edition) to the fire for the crime of threatening the integrity of the English language. Archie says that's nothing - Wolfe once burned a cookbook for a bad suggestion - and it's material only because Wolfe's mental processes are muddled, what with the open fire and his anger.

Sally brought $22,000 in cash to engage Wolfe to investigate the murder of Paul Jerin, who was poisoned while playing 12 simultaneous blindfold chess games at the Gambit club. Sally's father, Matthew, wanted Jerin's nose rubbed in the dirt after Jerin creamed him (Jerin's giving odds of a rook in their last game made it even worse), and not only arranged the blindfold match, but provided the hot chocolate that appears to have been the vehicle for the arsenic, so now Matthew's in jail. Sally doesn't trust her father's lawyer, Dan Kalmus, to handle a criminal case in which the husband of Anna Blount is on trial for his life, but she couldn't persuade him or her father to face facts and hire Wolfe, so she's come to do it herself.

After hearing everything that Matthew is known to have done with regard to carrying chocolate and clean cups that evening, Wolfe states that either Blount's "an unexampled jackass, or he is innocent." Sally wins points for being very frank with Wolfe, plus saying that he's a wizard, and bringing a big wad of cash, so Wolfe takes the case.

Unfortunately, the case really *needs* a wizard: they soon discover that only a handful of people had an opportunity to poison Jerin's hot chocolate, and of that handful, only Blount even knew Jerin, let alone might have had a motive. So Wolfe takes the position that Jerin's death was itself a gambit: the early sacrifice of a piece (Jerin) to gain an advantage (the removal of Matthew Blount), and that it's not Jerin's murder, but the planned judicial murder of Blount that he needs to investigate.

Apart from the lovely opening scene, this book is distinguished by what Archie considers to be one of the best charades Wolfe has ever staged (Archie pretends to have been fired, so Wolfe and Saul have a field day play-acting as he watches through the waterfall peephole). It's also the only case I remember in which Archie reached the answer before Wolfe did (granted, because he got the crucial piece of evidence first).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Review for People Looking for Chess Fiction, April 11, 2007

By	Eskychesser (Michigan - USA) - See all my reviews

The other review is quite thorough - but I will review this book from the theme of chess literature. I am an accomplished chess player and life long devotee to the game. I gave this story three stars because it did flow pretty smooth. The mentionings of chess are okay and accurate. The setting was pretty much a murder that takes place at a chess club and Nero Wolfe and his sidekicks are responsible for solving it. This was my first Stout book, so the colorful characters really did catch my interest and I would read Stout again in the future. However, I had a little bit of a tough time with Stout's style. He uses had had and that that so much and even in the dialogue of the characters. Yuck! Still, from a chess fan point of view and seeing how chess fiction of any type is quite scarce - I do recommend this book even though it is average in quality.