After the heir to a frozen-food fortune gets iced, Nero Wolfe's
right-hand man becomes a suspect: "Goldsborough does a masterly job
with the Wolfe legacy" (Booklist).
When Lily Rowan doesn't laugh at his jokes, Archie Goodwin knows
something's wrong. Her niece Noreen has been running around with Sparky
Linville, a club-hopping bad boy who's the terror of Manhattan
nightlife, and the last time she went out with him, Noreen wasn't
herself when she came home. All she would tell her aunt was that she had
been assaulted. Springing into action, Goodwin waits for Linville
outside of Morgana's, a chrome-and-glass palace that sits like a wart on
Second Avenue. They nearly come to blows, but Linville's bodyguard
intervenes, and Goodwin retreats to plan his next move. In the morning,
Linville is dead, and Goodwin is the chief suspect. For years he has
helped rotund genius Nero Wolfe out of jams, and now it's time for the
master detective to return the favor.