Banquets of the Black Widowers


Banquets of the Black Widowers is a collection of mystery short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov featuring his fictional [Gentlemen's Gentlemen's club (traditional)|club (traditional)|club] of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in September 1984, and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in June 1986. The first British edition was issued by Grafton in August 1986.
This book is the fourth of six that describe mysteries solved by the Black Widowers, based on a literary dining club he belonged to known as the Trap Door Spiders.Asimov 1994, I. Asimov, chapter "120. The Trap Door Spiders". It collects twelve stories by Asimov, together with a general introduction and an afterword by the author following each story. Nine of the stories were previously published; "The Driver," "The Wrong House" and "The Intrusion" are new to this collection.
Each story involves the club members' knowledge of trivia. Nearly every story here is about decoding a riddle, each of which provides a clue based on dying or last words, misunderstood words, forgotten words, or withheld words. A few are based on facts that are, perhaps, not generally known to the public – Asimov was a frequent writer of popular science and his inclination to explain anything and everything for the general public carried over into other fields, such as history and sociology – but all the mysteries play fair with the reader, who is given either enough information to figure out the solution or a satisfying conclusion that is based on previously given facts and personality qualities.

Contents

  • "Introduction"
  • "Sixty Million Trillion Combinations" – A paranoid mathematician who suspects that his work on Goldbach's conjecture has been stolen. When the authorities demand his cooperation, he sulkily gives a clue to the code which protects his work on a shared computer, suspecting that no one could possibly guess or deduce the code. Fortunately for the agencies who need this information, the Black Widowers are able to come up with the code, purely because one member shares a trait with the mathematician.
  • "The Woman in the Bar" – the Black Widowers have as their dinner guest Darius Just, the main character from Asimov's mystery novel Murder at the ABA. Darius finds himself in danger of violent reprisals when he tries to help a frightened woman. She has given him crucial nonverbal communication clues which the Black Widowers solve. Asimov states that he "thought up" this Black Widowers story just for this character.
  • "The Driver" – the Black Widowers consider the mysterious death of a chauffeur at a SETI Institute conference.
  • "The Good Samaritan" – in a controversial break with tradition, a woman is invited to attend the men-only club.
  • "The Year of the Action" – a historical clue is solved about a comic opera, "The Pirates of Penzance," by Gilbert and Sullivan.
  • "Can You Prove It?" – the guest describes his arrest and interrogation behind the Iron Curtain and is unable to explain why he was released.
  • "The Phoenician Bauble" – a valuable archaeological artefact has been lost.
  • "A Monday in April" – concerns a matter of trivia about ancient Rome. The evenings guest feels that his girlfriend cheated in a competition, but Henry's solution casts doubt on that presumption.
  • "Neither Brute Nor Human" – the story requires solving a riddle about a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.
  • "The Redhead" – a woman disappears into thin air.
  • "The Wrong House" – the guest is unable to determine which of his neighbours has been counterfeiting money after witnessing their operation while drunk.
  • "The Intrusion" – an uninvited guest crashes the party and asks the Black Widowers for help in finding the man who took advantage of his developmentally challenged sister.

Reception

Dave Langford reviewed Banquets of the Black Widowers for White Dwarf #70, and stated that "I like detective stories, but Asimov tries the patience with trivial, moronic 'puzzles'."

Reviews

  • Review by Tom A. Jones in Vector 129
  • Review by Phil Nichols in Paperback Inferno, #63