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Rating: 
Summary: A bittersweet return.
Review: As a fan of Isaac Asimov, and of his Black Widower stories, I was delighted to read this book. Here you have a selection of ten of the best Black Widower stories ( a good selection, though I'd have included "Earthset and Evening Star". But there are many I consider the best, "Early Sunday Morning" and "The Wrong House" among them); there are also six uncollected BW stories,of which "Lost in a Time Warp" is one of the better examples of Asimov's sense of humour, very like "The Redhead", also included in the volume. At the end we have a commmemorative Black Widower
story written by Ardai, a very clever homage to the Good Doctor.
It's a book well worth having, not only for Asimov's fans, but for the mystery/puzzle stories' readers, also.
Rating:
Summary: A bittersweet return.
Review: As a fan of Isaac Asimov, and of his Black Widower stories, I was delighted to read this book. Here you have a selection of ten of the best Black Widower stories ( a good selection, though I'd have included "Earthset and Evening Star". But there are many I consider the best, "Early Sunday Morning" and "The Wrong House" among them); there are also six uncollected BW stories,of which "Lost in a Time Warp" is one of the better examples of Asimov's sense of humour, very like "The Redhead", also included in the volume. At the end we have a commmemorative Black Widower
story written by Ardai, a very clever homage to the Good Doctor.
It's a book well worth having, not only for Asimov's fans, but for the mystery/puzzle stories' readers, also.
Rating:
Summary: Ingenious mystery stories by a master
Review: Everyone knows Isaac Asimov as one of the all-time great science fiction writers, but what a lot of people don't know is that he also wrote wonderful mystery stories. The best were about a club called "The Black Widowers," and this new book collects the ten best of the Black Widowers stories, plus six "lost" Black Widowers stories that never appeared in any Black Widowers collection before. Plus two extra tribute stories by other authors, an introduction by Harlan Ellison, a Black Widowers story Asimov wrote featuring a character based on Ellison, and an essay by Asimov explaining how he came to write these stories in the first place. It's a terrific book, a real treat for any fan of the Good Doctor or of brilliant mysteries.
Rating: 
Summary: Asimov greatly overrated.
Review: I'm pretty sure I've read all the Black Widowers collections. There are five books, I think, and somewhere around 60 stories. Probably 10 of them are good, 30 mediocre, and 20 bad.
For a collection that is similar in concept, but far superior in both writing and plot ideas, try the "Tuesday Club Murders" short stories by Agatha Christie, featuring Miss Marple.
Rating:
Summary: Starred review from BOOKLIST magazine
Review: This review from BOOKLIST used to be on this page, but somehow disappeared. For those who missed it...*Starred Review* Ah, there's nothing like a Harlan Ellison rant to add some spice to a short story collection, and he delivers a beaut in the form of an introduction to this collection of the late Asimov's Black Widower stories, one of the incredibly prolific author's relatively rare ventures into the mystery genre. Asimov wrote 66 Black Widower tales in all, from 1970 until his death in 1992, and this collection brings together 6 never published in book form in addition to the editor's selection of the 10 best. Each story is framed by a meeting of the Black Widower Club, at which the members, armchair detectives all, are treated to a gourmet dinner and then, for dessert, tested with a classic puzzle mystery. The mysteries tend to be gentle and ironic, solved by deduction instead of mayhem--and explained for the slow of mind by the inimitable waiter Henry. For fans of puzzle mysteries, this one's a gem, from a kinder, gentler era. (What does Ellison rant about? Mostly the book's editor, Ardai.) Elliott Swanson
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