I have never read any of Isaac Asimov's stories in the Black Widowers series. Now I find out that they were collected in six books. The one I read recently was in Detective Stories, stories chosen by Philip Pullman. The story was first published in 1976 and was collected in Casebook of the Black Widowers.
"The Cross of Lorraine" is the type of story I did not think I would like, but in fact I enjoyed it very much. A group of middle-aged men gather monthly for dinner, and at that dinner they are presented with a puzzle to solve. I don't know how all the stories go, but in this one the puzzle pops up unexpectedly, it was not brought to them for a solution.
The story begins with a magician joining the group as a guest, and the group questions him about his experiences in his job. This leads to a puzzle that he has not been able to solve on his on, try as he may. He is trying to find a woman that was traveling on a bus with him. They were traveling at night and she left the bus while he was asleep. The solution is clever and amusing, if a bit far-fetched. But I think it was the tone of the mystery I liked most, playful, light.
So I will be looking for a copy of one of the books of collected stories, hopefully the first one, Tales of the Black Widowers.
15 comments:
I didn't even know Isaac Asimov had written detective short stories! I'm sort of agog! And this one sounds excellent as I quite like the 'people sitting around discussing odd things' scenario in books. I think I need to look into this...
Cath, I have read a couple of Asimov short stories in anthologies and I have a book of short stories called The Union Club Mysteries which seems to be similar to the Black Widowers mystery stories. It is about 4 elderly men in a club discussing various mysteries. That one I haven't read yet but I will have to find it and try some of the stories. I hope you find some of these successfully. I had hoped that they might be available as Kindle editions but it doesn't look like it.
I'm no expert on Asimov, Bracy, but I have read a few of his short stories, and they're great, aren't they? I very much like his Lije Baley novels, too. Interesting that he did crime fiction as well as other sorts of fiction (and non-fiction, and....).
Margot, I read the first two Lije Bailey novels and I enjoyed both of them. Asimov was a talented and prolific writer.
Asimov's "Black Widowers" stories are part of a long tradition of "club stories" (and also bar-chatter stories) that often involve solving mysteries, or delivering off-trail or fantasy or horror stories within the framework...hence also the Union Club stories...Asimov's stories were based on his membership in the Trap Door Spiders, a group that was formed in large part because the original members wanted an opportunity to meet socially without having one member's wife, apparently someone the rest found utterly disagreeable, present. Hence, at least initially and for some time, a stag affair/fraternal organization...eventually they would invite guests to speak at the meetings and sometimes join (and the regular cast of the stories are mostly correspondents to the--mostly writer--members in the real club).
Along with the Widowers stories and the Elijah Bailey sfnal mysteries (beginning with THE CAVES OF STEEL and THE NAKED SUN), Asimov wrote two contemporary-mystery novels, MURDER AT THE A.B.A. (American Booksellers Association convention) and his earlier A WHIFF OF DEATH (the first edition published under the publisher's title THE DEATH DEALERS), set in the other professional world of which Asimov was a part, that of biochemistry. He published few other sfnal mysteries and such, such as "Light Verse"...and he published a collection at the end of the '60s, ASIMOV'S MYSTERIES, with relatively generous definition of "mysteries" in play.
As Todd points out, Asimov infused his Science Fiction with mysteries. It was a short step for him to write mystery novels and short stories after that. Like you, I enjoyed the "Black Widowers" tales. And I recommend ASIMOV'S MYSTERIES to anyone who enjoys clever detection.
Todd, I read Murder at the A.B.A. but too many years ago to remember, so I have a copy of that to reread. And I bought a copy of A Whiff of Death partly because it had a great skull on the cover. The one science fiction book of his that I read (since blogging) was The End of Eternity, and I remember thinking that it read like a mystery. I definitely will follow up on more of the short stories, and especially the Black Widowers stories.
George, I will look around for a copy of Asimov's Mysteries at a reasonable price in decent condition. I had seen an anthology of short stories by other authors like that, which he put together but I did not know of that volume of his own stories. I would usually wait for a book sale to check for one first, but those are not happening much now, so I will shop online.
Dropped my "a" from "a few more" above. ASIMOV'S MYSTERIES is one of his more uneven collections, as Asimov could and did publish a number of very notional stories, but his best work is always worth a look. (His default approach to fiction was, as writer and critic Algis Budrys noted, as a lightly dusted essay, but when he dug in at the emotional as well as conceptual level, he could be very impressive indeed.)
I read a few of these in my youth, during a period of being a huge fan of Asimov. I always like his style, even though his language is often quite amusingly dated now. As for the Lije Bailey novels, well, don't tell anyone, but I'm still secretly in love with R Daneel Olivaw... 😉
FictionFan, I have the third Lije Bailey novel somewhere, not cataloged yet, and hope I unearth it soon. I have enjoyed Asimov's storytelling in the past and need to seek more of his books out.
I loved CAVES OF STEEL so I'll definitely have to check out his more traditional mysteries.
That's good, DforDoom. I look forward to seeing your reviews if you read them.
Sounds intriguing, but hey I've more than enough!
Col, I have so many unread short story anthologies. At least now I am reading some of them.
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