Nero Wolfe

It might have been interesting if Thayer David had lived to do a television series based on Rex Stout's corpulent gourmet detective Nero Wolfe. In fact normally David had the poundage that would have made the casting perfect. But sad to say he was suffering the fatal cancer that killed him.

In this story the very wealthy Anne Baxter hires Nero Wolfe to of all things get the FBI off her back. They're conducting an open tail on her and making her life miserable.

J. Edgar Hoover's minions have their reasons for investigating Baxter. She is distributing a copy of a book an author published that was not a glowing testimonial to the FBI. Said author was murdered some months ago and the case is unsolved.

Baxter herself gives Wolfe an offhanded piece of information that enables him to solve the crime. As usual Wolfe deduces while his young assistant Archie Goodwin played here by Tom Mason does the leg work. Quite a bit like the Perry Mason movies where William Katt or William R. Moses gathers the facts and witnesses for Raymond Burr.

Thayer David and Tom Mason would have made a classic Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Sad this is the proof we have of that.