I was almost going to say "If Death Ever Slept" as well, but the reason I left it off was because I don't recall it as well as some of these others; I merely had a memory of liking it a lot the last tiem I read it. But I felt that to include it without being more familiar with it would probably be inaccurate/unfair, so I left it off.
(Warning- spoilers ahead)
I have to say, I didn't really enjoy The Black Mountain a lot (not to say I disliked it) probably because it was missing so many of the old familiar faces that I've come to really enjoy from the (book) series. It wasn't a bad story per se, although I kind of didn't like the way the deaths of Marko and Carla were done. I understand that it was necessary to handle it in a completely "remote" -for lack of a better term (if we were talking about a movie or tv show, I would say "off camera") way, because obviously with the books in a first person narrative and the narrorator not being present, there's no other way to handle it, but it just seemed like they were bombs just being dropped out of nowhere. If you have ever read Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series (and I cannot have any expectation that Nero Wolfe readers necessarily would since they are two completely different genres) then it's kind of the same way the entire character of Caine is handled. No preemptory build up, just appears and dissappears like that.
I did actually enjoy many of the later books too, but for various reasons, I have probably read them less overall, as well as less recently, only out of the coincidental fact that my copies of some of the later books are less accessable to me (read: buried or maybe even lost) and therefore, the same reasoning I gave to excluding "If Death Ever Slept" applies to some of those as well.
Having just rewatched this TV series on a whim, (and because enough time had passed since my previous viewing) I am debating whether or not to re-read the books as well (after I am done watching the 1981 Nero Wolfe series, which I can tell you even after only seeing 1 and 1/2 episodes from so far, is VASTLY inferior to the AE series). I'm a little hesitant because even though I am very much in a "Nero Wolfe" type of mood, re-reading all those books - even just the ones I own - is a major undertaking/commitment (once I start, I'm extremely unlikely to stop until I am done, so the word commitment really applies here). I have a number of other things going on in my life - as I'm sure we all do - so I am very torn as to whether or not I want to do it now. But if I do you can be sure I will have a lot more to say on this subject.
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