Author Rex Stout

Two rivals-duelists, trying to save their lives, hire instead of an unsurpassed master of shooting with a gun ...

Wolfe will have to solve two related complex cases - to remove from the employee of a large company a false charge of theft of thirty thousand dollars and force the British lord to pay the debt of many years ago.

A collection of early stories from the man who created Nero Wolfe. Bill Farden is an experienced burglar. He gains entry to the house without effort, and his ears tell him the inhabitants are asleep. He pockets the silver and moves to the kitchen, to fill his stomach with strawberry shortcake. When the cook tiptoes downstairs, Bill disables her with chloroform. Upstairs, he ties the man of the house to his bedframe. In the next room he finds a little girl, and is touched by her helplessness until she pulls a gun on him. The nine-year-old is Major Wentworth, of the Girls' Military Auxiliary, and the revolver is as long as her arm. In these early stories, a young Rex Stout showed the talent for comic action that would make the Nero Wolfe novels enduring classics. In Stout's world, there is no thug more dangerous than a determined little girl.

Niro Wolfe, a passionate collector of orchids, a great foodie, beer lover and a great sleuth, almost never leaves the house. All crimes he unravels on the basis of the facts that collects Archie Goodwin, his charming, ironic assistant with a great memory.