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.
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