Paula Messina Reviews: Champagne for One by Paula Messina

 

Please welcome back Paula Messina to the blog today…

 

 

 

Champagne for One

 

by Paula Messina

 

 

When an acquaintance with a bad cold asks Archie Goodwin to take his place at an annual charity dinner for unwed mothers, the private detective agrees. After all, it might be fun. So begins Rex Stout’s Champagne for One.

Fans of Stout’s Nero Wolfe know the fun won’t last long. When Archie’s around, the Grim Reaper is tagging along.

Sure enough, Faith Usher collapses and dies after drinking a glass of champagne.

Everyone in attendance, even the butler, is one hundred and fifty percent positive that Faith committed suicide. Her habit of keeping a vial of cyanide in her purse was widely known, and Faith had frequently voiced her intention to ingest the poison. Besides, witnesses insist no one tampered with the champagne. Even Inspector Cramer is convinced Faith died at her own hand. Case closed.

Archie pipes up. Not so fast. Faith Usher didn’t kill herself. She was murdered.

His proof? His eyes. Shortly before Faith’s demise, one of the other honored guests, worried Faith would harm herself, warned Archie about the cyanide’s whereabouts. Archie kept an eye peeled on the purse in question while closely monitoring Faith’s every move. He knows what he saw and what he didn’t see—Faith never went near the purse and couldn’t have laced the champagne with cyanide. Ergo, Faith was murdered.

Before Nero Wolfe can ring for beer, Edwin Laidlaw, one of the gentlemen who attended the deadly dinner, arrives to plead that Wolfe uncover the murderer. Faith in Archie’s accurate memory and a hefty retainer convince Wolfe to take on the case. The game’s afoot.

Goodwin can assert in the affirmative that Faith was murdered, but he can also prove no one tampered with Faith’s last glass of champagne. Archie is frustrated. Wolfe is stumped. How did the murderer taint the bubbly?

Wolfe, genius that he is, gathers everyone who attended at the party in his office, and….  No spoiler alert here. I’m not telling. You’ll have to read Champagne for One to learn the killer’s identity.

Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin remain among the most popular figures in the pantheon of mystery fiction. The stories still feel fresh. Archie is always witty and Nero Wolfe perennially grouchy. Wolfe and Goodwin appear in several TV series, including one set in Rome and starring Francesco Pannofino as Wolfe and Pietro Sermonti as Archie.

In 2000, Nero Wolfe was a finalist for the Series of the Century Award at Bouchercon XXXI, and Rex Stout was a finalist for the Writer of the Century Award. To no one’s surprise, Agatha Christie snagged both awards. Well, she would have snagged them if she’d still been around. The Mystery Writers of America presented Stout with the Grand Master Awards in 1959. Rex Stout, who was as thin as Nero Wolfe was fat, was inducted into the Short Mystery Fiction Society Hall of Fame in 2024.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/46EiW05

 

Paula Messina ©2025

Paula Messina lives within spitting distance of the Atlantic. When she isn’t reading about Archie Goodwin’s adventures, she’s writing fiction, make that historical, contemporary, and humorous fiction.