- Mass Market Paperback
- Publisher: Bantam Books (Mm); Reissue edition (Sep 1985)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0553251724
- ISBN-13: 978-0553251722
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.2 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,185,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
GAMBIT (Nero Wolfe)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Just right for a couple of days commuting read, or a few hours solid enjoyment at least, this story is probably one of the better Nero Wolfe mysteries (although I still prefer In the Best Families and Some Buried Caesar).
I would say it rates highly because it really is a case that looks impossible to crack - Nero knows it and Archie effectively took it on for him because he wanted to watch Nero solve it.
You don't get the best out of Inspector Cramer in this particular mystery from his fleeting visits, but Archie is in fine form winding Nero up; and Nero is stressed because he has a woman in the house (the client), which is something he's really not used to, not to mention VERY resistant to. But fundamentally you know that Nero is a nice guy - he might be bad tempered (irritable is probably better) fussy and work-shy, but once he's used to a new situation, he makes the most of it. In this story, for example, after his dictionary ripping exercise (we find Nero doing this at the start of the book -he's taken offence at Webster's New International Dictionary), he finds the client has been reading Voltaire from his library and proceeds to rip into Voltaire as well with discussion stretching from lunch to dinner for this topic...not a topic many dinner tables would take on I suspect.
An interesting literary link came out of this book - African Genesis by Robert Ardrey (published 1961)- a book which has just arrived in the story and which Nero immerses himself in. I read Terry Nation's 'Survivors' just after this and was surprised to find this book mentions it as well. Small world!
In short, it's great and the brilliant thing about it is there's not just one guilty party - there are a few, but the guilt is at different levels. See if you can work it out before Nero does...
I would say it rates highly because it really is a case that looks impossible to crack - Nero knows it and Archie effectively took it on for him because he wanted to watch Nero solve it.
You don't get the best out of Inspector Cramer in this particular mystery from his fleeting visits, but Archie is in fine form winding Nero up; and Nero is stressed because he has a woman in the house (the client), which is something he's really not used to, not to mention VERY resistant to. But fundamentally you know that Nero is a nice guy - he might be bad tempered (irritable is probably better) fussy and work-shy, but once he's used to a new situation, he makes the most of it. In this story, for example, after his dictionary ripping exercise (we find Nero doing this at the start of the book -he's taken offence at Webster's New International Dictionary), he finds the client has been reading Voltaire from his library and proceeds to rip into Voltaire as well with discussion stretching from lunch to dinner for this topic...not a topic many dinner tables would take on I suspect.
An interesting literary link came out of this book - African Genesis by Robert Ardrey (published 1961)- a book which has just arrived in the story and which Nero immerses himself in. I read Terry Nation's 'Survivors' just after this and was surprised to find this book mentions it as well. Small world!
In short, it's great and the brilliant thing about it is there's not just one guilty party - there are a few, but the guilt is at different levels. See if you can work it out before Nero does...
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format: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 convoyed 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).
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
12 reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Not Stout's Best
10 April 2005
Format:Audio CD
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...
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...
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Mix a 12-game blindfold simul, hot chocolate, and arsenic
5 May 2002
Format: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).
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A Gamut of Gambits
12 Jun 2003
Format:Hardcover
The dictionary defines "gambit" as a stratagem. In chessplay it is a particular type of stratagem in which a piece is sacrificed in order to gain an advantage. The victim in this story is a chessmaster who agrees to do a simultaneous blindfold exhibition for the "Gambit Club" a chess club for rich snobs. In a blindfold simul, the master plays several opponents without looking at any of the boards. It is usually accomplished by the master sitting with his back to the array of boards. In this exhibition, the master sat in a different room sipping cocoa while four messengers brought the moves to him from his twelve opponents. One of the opponents actually played a counter gambit.
When the master keels over dead from arsenic poisoning, the club member who brought him the cocoa becomes the prime suspect. Wolfe refuses to believe that the cocoa deliverer committed the murder because he will have to return the $22,000.00 retainer paid him by the suspect's daughter if the suspect actually proves to be guilty.
Wolfe decides that the only way the suspect could be innocent would be if one of the messengers had sacrificed the master as a gambit to incriminate the suspect. But he lacks one essential fact to be able to prove his case.
Wolfe devises a gambit to get that fact, but someone sacrifices the witness who can give it to him. He then decides that he can find the true killer in the first murder by the stratagem of solving the more easily investigated second murder.
Then Wolfe gets the fact which cost the second victim his life, and he decides that his only hope to solve either murder is to devise a gambit which sacrifices his confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin.
Wolfe calls all the suspects together, announces he has fired Archie for incompetence, and then . . . .
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