Apparently this Rex Stout classic, "The Black Mountain," has gone out of print again. That's annoying. Because I really want to try to limit the podcast to books that are in print, I'm not going to do a full number on "The Black Mountain."
But, if you haven't read it, you should. It's one of the rare occasions when Wolfe and Archie go out - in this case, not just out of the brownstone, but out of the U. S. entirely, to Wolfe's birthplace, Montenegro. They set out to find the person or persons responsible for the murder of Wolfe's closest friend - and, eventually, for the death of his adopted daughter.
Instead of being a standard classic whodunit, this is really an adventure story masquerading as a Wolfe mystery, as Wolfe and Archie battle a variety of villains, both Russian and Yugoslav (for this was in the days when "Yugoslavia" was one of the Soviet bloc nations). They find themselves working with a variety of anti-Soviet and/or anti-Yugoslav characters. But they do it, as always, with the flair and humor that we expect from Wolfe and Archie. It's a marvelous book. There are editions of "The Black Mountain" available through booksellers affiliated with Amazon - or your local mystery bookstore should be able to find a copy for you. Hopefully somebody will get all these classics back into print - and soon.