Eeny Meeny Murder Mo

Rating:
Summary: Deftly Done Dramas of Death and Deduction
Review: My first introduction to Nero Wolfe was an audiobook I picked up on a trip. He seemed slothful, arrogant, pompous, and disagreeable. His assistant Archie Goodwin seemed like a somewhat deductively challenged Sam Spade.

My next encounter with Wolfe came in the form of the Radio Spirits editions of the old Nero Wolfe series starring Sydney Greenstreet. Greenstreet was a natural for Wolfe, bringing out Wolfe's better qualities while minimizing the flaws. I got hooked on the A&E Nero Wolfe series. What seemed like serious character flaws in the audiobook became endearing eccentricities in the TV series. I wish it a long run.

The A&E series sent me scurrying to Amazon.com for some Nero Wolfe novels. Good exercises in logical deduction as a method of solving crimes. But the endearing eccentricities of the TV shows once again became off-putting character flaws.

Enter the CBC radio dramas. The CBC plays are every bit as good as the A&E TV series. Since you can drive a car and listen to the CBC plays, I consider them even better.

"Eeny Meeny Murder Mo" is a dramatization of a Wolfe novel that was also done by A&E. I wouldn't give you two cents for the difference in entertainment values and production qualities between the two shows. The musical score of the radio play could have been improved, but that was the only sour note in the whole production.

On the flip side, we find "The Squirt and the Monkey." The back panel has this to say about "The Squirt and the Monkey": "It's an all-out assault on Wolfe and Goodwin when one is framed for murder and the other is sued for a fortune. A liar is playing with fire."

Apparently without leaving his specially made chair, and certainly without leaving the front stoop of his brownstone house, Wolfe solves the mystery with a tour de force exercise in deduction.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent audio adaptation of Nero Wolfe
Review: The CBC radio production of 13 of Rex Stout's "Nero Wolfe" stories is the best Wolfe adaptation that I have come across in any media. The voice casting is excellent, production quality is excellent, and the writing is so true to the tone of the stories that it could almost have been done by Rex Stout himself.

My biggest regret with these shows is that the CBC did not adapt more of the stories.