I can’t be the only Black Widowers fan, since my local Barnes & Noble already had the new collection on back order though it was just released in November. (Luckily, BN.com had it in stock. Yay!)
So fess up! I’ve managed to track down all five previous collections. My favorite stories are the first one, “The Acquisitive Chuckle,” and (apropos of recent events) “Nothing Like Murder.” I also enjoyed the one where the meeting was held in Manny’s apartment and the other members were amazed at the ultraconservative cut of Henry’s clothes. And while I’ve always been a fan of Asimov’s mysteries, it was the little introductions to each story that endeared me to Asimov’s personal writing style and persuaded me to read I. Asimov, one of his autobiographies, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I love them too, and I wasn’t aware that there are any collections in print. Amongst the ones I remember offhand: “Unique is Where You Find It” and “The Cross of Lorraine”. Very clever.
Maybe I’ll look into getting some of those books myself. That’s six in all? Do they constitute the entirety of the series?
Was “Nothing Like Murder” the story of the Russian visitor who overheard what he believed to be a murder plot discussed between two college-age men?
If so, yes, that was quite clever. I never got it, though.
In fact, I never got most of the stories. I was quite proud when I was actually able to figure out a solution.
DAMN, they’re good.
And cmkeller, yes, there are collections out, some published fairly recently, too. One has two stories not published anywhere else (one of which is “The Wrong House;” I don’t remember the title of the other… “The Intruder”?). Not sure how many, tho’.
I just read his collection The Union Club Mysteries. They don’t measure up to the Widowers, maybe because they were done under contract for Gallery, a skin magazine, and thus aimed at a different audience. They’re still amusing.
Here are the titles of the collections (I’m not sure but several of them may be out of print – try http://www.mxbf.com/ for OOP books):
Tales of the Black Widowers
More Tales of the Black Widowers
Casebook of the Black Widowers
Banquets of the Black Widowers
Puzzles of the Black Widowers
Return of the Black Widowers (2003)
The first five collections each have a dozen stories, three of which were not previously published elsewhere.
rjk: I read The Union Club Mysteries too, and while I enjoyed them, I agree that they didn’t quite measure up to the Widowers. I’d still like to own a copy, though.
gum: With my renewed interest in Asimov, I actually have been thinking of taking up some of his sci-fi. I do occasionally read sci-fi short stories but haven’t seriously tackled any novels yet.
Krisfer: I used to be hipped on indie booksellers too (especially since my friend was one and I spent nearly every weekend hanging out in her store), but since my friend closed up shop it’s just been too hard to get to indies from out here in the sticks.
I just remembered another favorite story – one that I used for practice when I was teaching myself how to type: “Truth to Tell.”
Scarlett67, if you liked I, Asimov then you should read his first autobiography, split into two books called In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt. They are a very detailed account of his life from his childhood up to the 1970s. I enjoyed those as much as any of his fiction.
By a screwy coincidence, I picked up a used mass-market copy of Casebook a few weeks ago, and have read the first few stories in it.
“The Cross of Lorraine” was fair-to-middling, I thought, but “The Family Man” had an overly-esoteric denouement, even for me, and “The Sports Page” just stunk. I give Asimov credit for admitting that several readers wrote in with much better solutions to his problem of the dying message left by the Soviet double agent.
After “The Sports Page” I set the book down and haven’t gone back to it. I think I’d rather dig out my old copies of Queen’s Experiments in Deduction and other collections of Ellery short-short whodunits.
