The Last of the Black Widowers

Isaac Asimov, best known as the author of science fiction novels and short stories, and non-fiction science essays and books, was a fan of Agatha Christie and other mystery writers, and had long wanted to branch out into the mystery genre. His first forays in that genre carried on with his scientific expertise - he wrote a novel A Whiff of Death, in which a professor at a New York university must discover who has murdered his graduate student by substituting cyanide for chemicals on which he'd been working, and of course his two novels Caves of Steel (1954) and The Naked Sun (1957) were science fiction mysteries with a human detective and his positronic robot sidekick Daneel Oliwaw.

He then created Wendell Urth, who also dealt with scientific mysteries, with his debut in "The Singing Bells."

But he had always wanted to get into Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and finally accomplished that feat with "The Acquisitive Chuckle," in 1972.

The formula for the Black Widowers stories are the same in all cases, six members of the club, and their waiter Henry, meet once a month at the Milano restaurant for dinner and conversation. A guest is brought, who is "grilled" - asked to justify his existence, and invariably he (it is always a he, for this is a stag organization, except on one occasion when a woman is permitted to present her story, but must remain seated just outside the doorway to the dining room.)

Murder is only involved once in these stories, they are all ...not trivial... but involve such things as stolen bonds, cheating on a test, mislaying a manuscript, and so on. Indeed, as the stories go on, the problems become more and more trivial and far-fetched, but they continue to be popular because readers like the men who compirse the Black Widowers, in particular their invaluable waiter Henry, who is the one who really solves the puzzles.

Asimov was writing these stories during the 70s and 80s, when women were first beginning to challenge those men-only laws for organizations and clubs, and the fact that the Black Widowers is a stag organization and the women's movement is referenced on more than one occasion (for all that, I think Asimov really did think of women only as eye candy...for the most part).

The Return of the Black Widowers, the final book of the series, was published posthumously, and edited by Charles Ardai (with a touching and humorous forward by Harlan Ellison, who appears as Darius Just in one of the stories in the volume, The Woman in The Bar.) Eleven of the stories are reprints of stories from the other collections, six are uncollected stories (since there need to be twelve to fill out an anthology, and Asimov died prior to completing the whole set), and two stories about the Black Widowers by other writers, William Brittain's "The Men Who Read Isaac Asimov" - in which a group of men try to solve a contest using Henry's methods in the Black Widowers stories that they like, the other, by Charles Ardai, a Black Widowers tale.

The weakest story in the collection, and the one I dislike most of all, is "Yes, But Why." It deviates from the formula in that there is no guest - Henry wants to be the guest. He has a problem, and it is by hearing solutions suggested by the other members that he is able to clear away the dross to see the truth. On this occasion, he is having lady problems. As I read this story I just wanted to slap the lady in question, and Henry, and Asimov!

"I have told you," said Henry, "that she is a reserved and independant woman; that we have had a cool and entirely intellectual companionship. It may be, perhaps," and here he grew a trifle pinker, "that she found herself dissatisfied with that companionship. She knew that I pride myself on bein able to see into a complex situation, and it may be she plotted one in which I would fail."

"Yes, but why?" said Rubin.

"So that she would have a reasonable excuse to be distressed and weak for a considerable length of time. So that she would become dependent on me and cling to me. So that I would be concerned about her, and become more involved with her."

Oh, how I wanted to administer slaps all around!

Having said that, if you can track these books down in your local library, I would give them a try, and I suggest reading them in chronological order - in particular, read the first in the series, Tales of the Black Widowers, and its first, "The Acquisitive Chuckle," my favorite story of the lot.

Geoffrey Avalon (based on L. Sprague de Camp)
Emmanuel Rubin (based on Lester del Rey)
James Drake (based on Dr. John D. Clark)
Thomas Trumbull (based on Gilbert Cant)
Mario Gonzalo (based on Lin Carter)
Roger Halsted (based on Don Bensen)
The deceased founder of the club, Ralph Ottur, on whom the plot of the story "To the Barest" turned, was based on the real-life founder of the Trap Door Spiders, Fletcher Pratt. The stage magician The Amazing Larri, from the story "The Cross of Lorraine", was based on James Randi. The arrogant science writer Mortimer Stellar, from the story "When No Man Pursueth", was based on Asimov himself

Tales of the Black Widowers (1974)
More Tales of the Black Widowers (1976)
Casebook of the Black Widowers (1980)
Banquets of the Black Widowers (1984)
Puzzles of the Black Widowers (1990)
The Return of the Black Widowers (2003)