Aging millionairess Mrs. Rackham asks Nero Wolfe to find out where her penniless husband has suddenly been obtaining mysteriously large sums of money, a request that leads to murder and to threats against the master detective himself.

When the seemingly safe return of an abducted millionaire ends in his murder in his own home, Nero Wolfe sends Archie Goodwin to do his usual legwork, while Wolfe uncovers corruption and greed among Manhattan's elite.

With Nero Wolfe on the job, you'd think murderers would take caution. But even the master detective can't stop a killing, especially if it's an inside job -- right under the roof of his client, millionaire Otis Jarrell.What's more, it's Jarrell's own missing revolver that the killer uses. Wolfe must find the truth behind the scandals in Jarrell's ill-behaved family. One of its members sleeps the fitful sleep of the guilty, and Wolfe's getting dead-tired of murder.

A collection of early stories from the man who created Nero WolfeBill 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.

Eleven years after his own thoughtlessness sent his only son, Paul, away from home, Nebraska businessman James Herold calls upon Nero Wolfe to track down the young man so that he can make amends.