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    The Wolfe Widow
    The Wolfe Widow
    The Wolfe Widow
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Wolfe Widow

    Written by Victoria Abbott

    Narrated by Carla Mercer-Meyer

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Vera Van Alst, the infamous curmudgeon of Harrison Falls, New York, doesn't normally receive visitors without appointment, but she agrees to see the imperious Muriel Delgado upon arrival. Shortly thereafter, Jordan is told that her position is being terminated. Evicted from the Van Alst House, Jordan is determined to find out what hold Muriel has over her erstwhile employer.


    It seems Muriel has designs on Vera's money and property-not to mention a particular interest in her collection of Nero Wolfe first editions. When Jordan discovers a deadly connection between Muriel and the Van Alst family, it's up to her to put the house in order and stop a killer from going back to press.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateSep 2, 2014
    ISBN9781494571016
    The Wolfe Widow

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    Reviews for The Wolfe Widow

    4/5

    14 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Vera Van Alst is a book collector who is dwindling her trust fund and running a household with a cook/housekeeper, handyman/gardener, and with Jordan, an orphan niece of the Kelly brothers. She's a bookish edition trader who doesn't brook a bad book deal and doesn't turn her nose up at vintage velvet sweat pants either. Jordan gets put out of her attic room in the Van Alst mansion when a woman named Muriel Delgado turns up to find a way to cash in on Vera. Giving up more of the plot would be unfair, but the descriptive setting of the stage which Victoria Abbott pulls off in this novel is the fun part of it. We have a protagonist, Jordan, who can bandage scratches from Siamese cats, trace a stranger's family tree, act like the FBI and visit former neighbors of Vera's relatives, pick a lock, do some B&E, and enjoy the hospitality of the elderly couple who lived in one of the neighborhoods where the action of Vera Van Alst's young trials and tribulations were incubated. Jordan knows that her perseverance will rival that of Archie G., a sidekick to Nero Wolfe. Uncle Kev's dialogue seems a little maddening at times, but it was designed to be. It would be more fun if the current malaise of the current downturn wasn't evident in many of the scenes, but you can't help the writer who has seen too many churn and burn layoffs and purges to see the upside of the variety of jobs available when times get tough. A mixed bag, but one that makes me glad I didn't have to live among the My Little Pony décor that grew popular in the eighties, and glad to realize the writer knows about pathos and bathos too. It was very amusing.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book but not as much as the first two in this series. Jordan gets fired and a mystery woman moves into Vera Van Alst's home and starts overtaking Vera's life. Jordan is almost killed trying to find out why Vera is caving to this woman but with the help of her uncles and 2 new friends, Cherie, and a patrol officer, Jordan manages to get it sorted out.
    • 4/5
      The Wolfe Widow is Book Three of the series by Victoria Abbott, the pen name for the mother-daughter writing team of Mary Jane Maffini and Victoria Maffini.This book didn't have the comical action of The Christie Curse and The Sayers Swindle, because a lot of the characters who provided the comedy, particularly Jordan's Kelly uncles, are largely absent from this book. This was deliberately done as part of the plot, as the theme of the book is how Jordan learns to "stand on her own two feet" and sleuth mostly alone if she has to. When I first read the book, I thought that I didn't like it as much as the first two, precisely because of all those missing characters who made the other books so much fun. On second reading, I realized what the authors were trying to do, and I enjoyed this book more.Looking forward to Book Four, The Marsh Madness, which comes out later this year. It's on my wish list!
    • 4/5
      I've been a fan of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries for over 20 years, so when I saw The Wolfe Widow on my library's new mysteries shelf, I pulled it. As soon as I saw 'Nero Wolfe first editions' on the back cover, I knew I had to check it out.The fact that the first sentence was the title of one of the most famous Nero Wolfe mysteries had me pleased. I don't share Jordan Bingham's enthusiasm for Archie Goodwin, who is more than young enough to be my son, but I enjoyed reading about her attempts to imitate him. (Ahem, young lady, regarding your reference to Nero Wolfe's other operatives as 'lesser lights' in chapter 9: Archie himself considered Saul Panzer the better detective. As for the red leather chair in Wolfe's study that you lament lacking in chapter 16, it's not Archie's. His chair is behind his desk. Tsk.)This is book three and I haven't read books one or two (yet), but there's enough information to understand the relationships among the characters. Jordie's Uncle Kev is a disaster, but charming. Uncles Mike and Lucky are very shady businessmen -- Jordie is the first member of her family (Kelleys only, or Binghams, too?) to go straight.Employer Vera Van Alst isn't as rich as her family was when she was little, thanks to her father's incompetence as a businessman. She's still despised for the fact that Leonard cost their town its show factory. Her own personality is no help. I do sympathize with her love of books. Vera does have a superb cook, Signora Panetone. Fiametta's English is limited, but with cooking such as hers, who cares?A woman named Muriel Delgado enters Van Alst House and Jordie is fired. Muriel seems to have a hold over Vera, but what? Jordie needs to find out, both to protect Vera and get her job back.Lance and Tiff, Jordie's best friends, have only cameo roles in this book. The same is true for her boyfriend, Tyler 'Smiley' Dekker. This leaves our heroine almost on her own. She does quite nicely. It's pretty suspicious when Jack Jones, the soon-to-retire detective assigned to handle a hit-and-run that Jordie knows was attempted murder, isn't doing much. I liked the way Jordie found out who the drivers were (although I suspected the reason witnesses differed on the color of the truck well before she did).Jordie was already dog-sitting at the beginning of the book. It gets livelier when she's suddenly cat-sitting as well. The climax was deliberately an imitation of a Nero Wolfe revelation, although the fat genius and Archie didn't have access to some of the technology used here. Cat lovers: Vera Van Alst has two Siamese, aptly named Good Cat and Bad Cat. I can believe that they love Cheez-Its. My late Noir once tried to snake a paw into my box when I didn't toss her one quickly enough.Dog lovers: You get Walter the Pug and Cobain the large, shaggy mutt. (I loved their reaction to the cats.)
    • 5/5
      Jordan Bingham is proud of the fact that she is the first person in her family to go straight. She loves her uncles who have helped raise her but prefers life on the straight and narrow. Her job with Vera Van Alst is a perfect way for her to save up money to go back to school. Vera may be hated by many but Jordan loves her job researching rare books. Things are going well until Muriel Delgado shows up at Vera’s doorstop. Before she knows what is happening, Jordan is fired and back home living with her uncles. Vera may not be the easiest person to work for but Jordan wants her job back and sets out to find out just who Muriel Delgado is and what kind of hold she has over Vera.“The Wolfe Widow” is the delightfully done third book in Victoria Abbott’s Book Collector cozy mystery series. I have to admit that I like to read cozy mysteries that have a murder or two (or three) but I loved The Wolfe Widow even though it wasn't quite that type of book. Yes, there are some dead bodies and a murder attempt, but the real mystery in this book is the hold Muriel has over Vera. Jordan is one of my all-time favorite cozy mystery characters - so proud of being the only one in her family to go straight even as she's donning disguises to break into houses. Abbott took a bit of a chance by having much of Jordan’s family and friends absent in the book but it works quite well - I felt like I was working right alongside Jordan as she investigated the case. As for the ending where killer is revealed? I loved it! It was very old-fashioned, totally unbelievable, but very well done and had me smiling throughout.“The Wolfe Widow” is another great cozy mystery by Victoria Abbott (mother and daughter team Mary Jane and Victoria Maffini).
    • 3/5
      Jordan Bingham is enjoying her work for her prickly employer/book collector Vera Van Alst. Jordan has a room of her own, and three square meals a day and she gets to hunt vintage mysteries for her boss. But before Jordan can begin to hunt for fine first editions of books my Rex Stout, her latest assignment, she’s fired and thrown out. Her firing coincides with the arrival of Muriel Delgado, who swooped in one night, separated Vera from her small support system and taken over Vera’s life.What can Muriel’s hold be on Vera? When she begins looking into Muriel’s background, Jordan is very nearly killed. And her attempted murder seems to mirror one that happened in Muriel’s family 40 years earlier. Coincidence? Jordan thinks not.This is a sweet little mystery series – an easy and fun read with great characters and a light-hearted approach. The only thing that annoys me is the constant references to characters in the books Jordan is hunting, with our heroine identifying with one or the other. The references seem “forced” and just interrupt the flow of the story. That’s my personal opinion and others may find them endearing.
    • 4/5
      In this third Book Collector outing, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are Jordan's role models to solve the mystery of Muriel Delgado, who's swiftly isolating Vera from anyone who could possibly help her. Vera may be without a safety net, but so's Jordan, who's recuperating from a bad accident. The only person who can possibly lend a hand is her Uncle Kevin about whom Jordan says (with great affection and a dusting of fear): "Having Uncle Kev as an ally is like playing catch with a grenade." She needs all the tricks Nero and Archie can teach her in order to save both Vera and herself.Watching Jordan solving the mystery is a joy, due in large part to the humor in this book. The Wolfe Widow is filled with comedic touches sure to bring smiles to any reader's face. I've also learned while reading this series that one of its bonuses is being so intrigued by each book's featured classic mystery writer (so far we've had Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Rex Stout) that I've started sampling-- and enjoying-- books that I normally avoid.The only thing that bothered me was the character of Muriel Delgado. For me, she was a bit over the top, and I kept envisioning a strange combination of Cruella de Vil and Joan Crawford whenever Muriel had a scene. This woman had some serious issues that her cartoon-like description detracted from. Dial her back a couple of notches, and Muriel Delgado would've been a kickass villain. Hmmm... perhaps too kickass for a cozy mystery? I'll have to ponder this for a while.In the mean time, it was another wonderful outing with Jordan, and I can't wait to see what she gets up to next!
    • 4/5
      Muriel Delgado shows up demanding to see Vera Van Alst. In spite of Jordan's attempts to put her off, she barges in. The next morning Jordan is fired and Muriel moves in. Jordan isn't sure what Muriel wants, but she knows Vera is in danger. When reports from her Uncle Kev and the Senora give her glimpses of what's going on, she knows she is right. As she begins to investigate Muriel's past, she's almost killed in a hit and run accident. Complicating things, most of Jordan's friends are unavailable to help her, and the officer in charge of the case appears to be linked to Muriel. This series differs from most cozies because Jordan's family doesn't always do the lawful thing. In this installment, Jordan follows the manner of Archie Goodwin in the Nero Wolfe novels. One secondary plot element felt only partially resolved at the end. Perhaps it is where the author picks up the next installment, but I felt the resolution needed to be in this book. I listened to the audiobook.
    • 5/5
      If you’re looking for a well written book with an exciting plot, you’ve just found it. THE WOLFE WIDOW is most certainly the book for you.The first sentence of the book, “The doorbell rang”, and the characters reactions to said ringing doorbell, assured me this would be hard to put this book down. Well, it was! Cleverly written mystery, suspense, humor, and wonderfully written characters, kept me turning pages longer into the night than I had planned. But it was completely worth it. If you liked the first two books in the Book Collector Mystery series, THE CHRISTIE CURSE, and THE SAYERS SWINDLE, you will delight in THE WOLFE WIDOW. If you haven’t read this series, get them all now and read them one after the other. Your only regret will be the amount of time you have to wait for book number four to be released.