Winner of the Lovey Award for Best Historical Novel: This award-winning mystery reveals how Archie Goodwin joined forces with famed private detective Nero Wolfe and launched a literary legend. In 1930, young Archie Goodwin comes to New York City hoping for a bit of excitement. In his third week working as a night watchman, he stops two burglars in their tracks with a pair of hot lead slugs. Dismissed from his job for being trigger-happy, he parlays his newfound notoriety into a job as a detective s assistant, helping honest sleuth Del Bascom solve cases like the Morningside Piano Heist, the Rive Gauche Art Gallery Swindle, and the Sumner-Hayes Burglary. But it s the kidnapping of Tommie Williamson, the son of a New York hotel magnate, that introduces Goodwin to the man who will change his life. Goodwin knows there s only one detective who can help find Tommie: Nero Wolfe, the stout genius of West Thirty-Fifth Street. Together, they ll form one of the most unlikely crime fighting duos in history but first Goodwin must locate Tommie and prove that he deserves a place by Wolfe s side. In this witty story about the origin of a legendary partnership, Robert Goldsborough gloriously evokes the spirit of Nero Wolfe s creator, bestselling author Rex Stout, and breathes new life into his beloved characters.