Tag: Robert Goldsborough

The Worst Reads of 2014

On January 5, 2015

I don’t want to do this kind of thing — but as I was looking over the books I read this year, I was either angry at the book or really disappointed with myself for wasting time with these three — so I figured I’d say something. Here are my Worst Novels/Biggest Disappointments of 2014 (in alphabetical order):

Poison Fruit

by Jacqueline Carey
My Review
This one just disappointed me so much, I’ll spare the rant. It could’ve been really, really good and it turned into a wreck.

Murder in the Ball Park

by Robert Goldsborough
My Review
It’s just wrong. Goldsborough had 1.5-2 strong Nero Wolfe novels in him, and it started to go downhill. But his last two are a whole new level of rotten. He needs to move on.

The Diner: Why is Church Important?

by Shane Sowers
My Review is forthcoming
The bits of this that are theological dialogues like The Pearl of Christian Comfort or Easy Chairs, Hard Words, are really good — sometimes great. But when it tries to develop (or show) character, when it tries humor? It’s bad. When it tries for plot? It’s just horrible.

Murder in the Ball Park by Robert Goldsborough

By HCNewton

On January 28, 2014

In Authors, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin, Rex Stout

Murder in the Ball Park

by Robert Goldsborough
Paperback, 228 pg.
MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, 2014
Read: Jan. 25, 2014

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 5 times? You’re writing Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin novels and I just can’t help myself. When I was on page 19, I actually put in my notes, “if this book wasn’t about Wolfe and Archie, I wouldn’t read another word.” But it was about them, so I read the whole thing.

There’s no attempt at all to mimic Stout, his voice, pacing, etc. And this is a good thing — if you can’t do it successfully, it just comes across as bad (a recent example in another medium is the Dan Harmon-less season 4 of Community). Goldsborough came close with Murder in E Minor, which is why it’ll always be the book least likely to get him pilloried by anyone. But here he doesn’t even try — this is someone using familiar characters in his own voice, and that’d fine. I figure it’s like when Sammy Hagar got to stop singing songs written for David Lee Roth and instead focus on songs written for him — same band, but it came across very differently. When I was able to think of this as a Goldsborough novel rather than a non-Stout, it was a better experience. Not good, really, but better.

You read series to spend time with characters you like/love. That’s a given — and even when someone other than their creator is doing the telling, you can still enjoy them (see: most TV and comic series). But when they really don’t seem like themselves, it’s really not that fun to hang out with them. And that’s the biggest problem here — another voice, I think I could handle. If that voice got the characters right. And Goldsborough falls flat here (flatter than ever before, I think)

The book starts off with Archie and Saul at a ball game, when an important looking fellow comes in and sits a few rows ahead of them. Archie doesn’t know who he is, so Saul dumps a whole bunch of information on the gentleman — a state senator of some repute. Here I called foul for the first of many times — Archie reads, what, two papers every morning? Or is it three? (I don’t care enough at this point to do the five minutes of research it’d take to verify this). He doesn’t need for Saul “The Expositor” Panzer to fill him in on all these details in an uncharacteristically verbose way. Just a shameful way to use Saul, anyway.

The middle hundred (give or take) pages were so hard to get through. Archie and Wolfe talk to the three main suspects as well as five people close to the case and Inspector Cramer. Each and every one of them gave the exact same list of suspects (obviously the suspects left themselves out) — in the same order of likelihood — and then each of them (including the suspects) gave nearly identical reasons why each suspect should and shouldn’t be considered. It was just painful, you could practically sing along with the characters by the end. “Second verse, same as the first.”

I don’t want to get into specifics here, but I was less than a quarter of the way through the book when I saw the hinge on which everything turned. It was so obvious, it was annoying. I don’t expect Goldsborough to be as good as Stout (rarefied company anyway), but someone who’s read as many mysteries as this guy seems to have should’ve been better at hiding the solution.

Lastly, the dialogue was simply atrocious.

After said VIP is killed, Archie tells Saul.

I don’t want to be here when Inspector Cramer or, heaven forbid, his dull-witted, stuttering underling, Lieutenant George Rowcliff, shows up. Each of them would try to pin this on me somehow

What’s wrong with this? Sure, Archie might say “Inspector Cramer” here, rather than simply “Cramer,” but I doubt it. But there’s no way he rambles on with full name and rank of Rowcliff — period. And that lumbering “dull-witted, stuttering underling”? Pfui. Saul knows Rowcliff. Archie might put that in his narration, but he’s not going to do that in dialogue with his old pal.

Later, when asking how Archie learned something, Lily says,

Your old friend and poker-playing adversary Lon Cohen, no doubt.

No. No. No. Lily’s lines should sing. The banter between she and Archie should have zip. Not this tin-eared nonsense.

I could go on, but I won’t. Just one other way that Goldsborough refuses to respect the characters that made this series what it is.

When I was about halfway done with this book, I posted this to Facebook, and I think it sums things up pretty well:
Next time a Robert Goldsborough book comes out, I need as many of you as possible to whack my nose w/a rolled-up newspaper and tell me, “no.”

Probably won’t do any good, but it’s still the humane thing to do.

—–

Archie Meets Nero Wolfe: A Prequel to Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe Mysteries by Robert Goldsborough

By HCNewton

On August 14, 2013

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin

A slightly briefer version of this appears on Goodreads.

—–

Archie Meets Nero Wolfe: A Prequel to Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe Mysteries by Robert Goldsborough

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Back in Junior High when I first discovered the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin books, I was quite relieved to learn that his family had approved a new author to write new books in the series. Murder in E Minor was pretty good — even if it sort of spoiled A Family Affair, it read like Stout on an off-day. His follow-up, Death on a Deadline, did some interesting things and was good enough. But from there, the quality really started slipping, and I can honestly say I really didn’t enjoy Silver Spire or The Missing Chapter at all — not because the latter was about an author continuing a popular series and dealing with backlash from the fans (that was actually sort of amusing). The passion and drive Goldsborough had initially was clearly gone — it’s this experience that keeps me from wholly embracing Ace Atkins as Spenser’s new scribe (as much as I really want to).

So why did I pick up Archie Meets Nero Wolfe? Well, it’d been eighteen years — so for Goldsborough to come back, there had to be a good reason — a story he cared about. He had time to get the voice right, the details “just so.” I was more than a little curious, too, just how did he see this initial meeting?

Oh, and, fine — I’ll be honest. You put out anything with the label “Nero Wolfe” on it and I’ll read it. Janet Evanovich, Nick Hornby, or Richard Russo wants to take a crack at it? I’ll bite.*

But, I did put it off for months. Take that, Goldsborough.

But I had hope. And that hope was buttressed after a few pages when I read:

…I got grilled by a surly lieutenant named Rowcliff, who had bulging eyes and a snarling voice that broke into a stutter when he got excited, which seemed to be much of the time.
He kept trying to get me to say that I fired at the robbers first. I was nervous, but when I wouldn’t budge off my story, his stuttering got worse, which would have been funny under different circumstances.

. That was a nice character moment. I looked forward to more of them. I even had Evernote ready to capture them like that one. That’s the only quotation I bothered grabbing.

There are two things you have to have (at this point) for an acceptable (if not good) Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin book. You need the characters we know and love and an interesting plot. Here, Goldsborough falls short on both counts.

To be fair(-ish), I thought he got Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin fairly close to right. Fritz and Rowcliff were pretty dead-on (and not really that present), maybe Stebbins, too. Cramer, Orrie and Bill were off. It was nice to spend some time with Del Bascom — and given how little time we spend with Bascom in the books, you can’t really judge how Goldsborough did with him.

Archie’s a tough one to peg — he’s new to New York at this time, fresh out of Ohio — so we can understand he’s not the detective we meet in Fer-de-Lance yet. He has to learn the city, learn more about being a detective — especially doing it Wolfe’s way, and essentially grow up. Sure, there’s traces of our man here — his attitude, his smart-mouth, his ability to handle himself in a moment of crisis. We see Archie’s appreciation for non-gourmet, but well-prepared, food — and a palate ready for education once he comes into Fritz’ influence. I don’t remember him being so fixated on coffee, either. I think there’s enough of Archie there to give Goldsborough credit for his characterization, but something’s holding me back.

I didn’t buy Wolfe at all — this is the big one. The others are seen in different lights than we normally are exposed to them, which can explain away a lot of the weaknesses of their portrayals — but you have to nail Wolfe or the whole thing is a waste of time. And beyond the beer, the dramatic entrance, his provision for guests . . . it was just a fat guy in a suit playing a part.

And as for plot? Pfui. This wasn’t much of a mystery, the bad guys do most of the work. Saul does almost everything commendable (and yes, you could make the argument that this is often the case) — Wolfe himself doesn’t solve much at all. He still holds the big gathering in his office — pretty much because he has to.

A lot of the attitudes expressed — say, for the child’s emotional well-being following the kidnapping, for example — seemed anachronistic. As did the language the characters used to describe that and similar ideas. I’d stopped caring by the point I noticed these piling up, so I didn’t take notes.

Lastly, I don’t buy at all the explanation Wolfe gives for hiring Archie. It’s just we’re at the end of the book, and it has to happen, so he makes up an excuse with no real justification behind it.

In the end, I’ve got to call this one unsatisfactory

If Robert Goldsborough dips back into this well? Will I read his next one? Yes, absolutely. I’ll hate myself, but I will.

I might wait a year or two, first.

—–

* I have nothing against any of these authors, at all, I like them a lot. I just don’t think they’re right for the books. Lee Goldberg, on the other hand…