Yeah, he wrote mysteries. Anybody read the Black Widower or the Union Club stuff? Usually the Black Widower stories fall into a pattern:

*Lots of annoying character dialogue.
*An interesting and clever problem.
*Annoying character interactions.
*Henry solves the mystery, sometimes by unfair and arbitrary means.

I mean, "The Obvious Factor" is clever and all, but it's the kind of thing that only Big Professional Authors TM can get away with. If I did it, they'd say I'm unimaginative and couldn't figure out an ending or something like that.

I read those -- harmless, and much easier to take than some of his later stuff (Foundation's Edge). I recall one mystery where the solution was to be found in certain special characters typed on a typewriter. Apparently something went wrong from script to page, because the book printed it wrong, rendering the solution incomprehensible. It took me a while to figure out what happened.

Also, most of those required the protagonist to relate a story where one significant piece of information is always left out. It seemed like he came up with a solution then worked back to the story. Not a bad way to generate ideas, but plainly obvious sometimes.

They reminded me of adult Encyclopedia Brown stories...

The best of his stories cause a smile and a "That was easy, why didn't I see it?"

The worst cause a "HUH?!" Like "Yankee Doodle Went to Town." Unless you know the original chorus to Yankee Doodle and are prepared to make one heck of a leap, then this is a very pointless story.

They reminded me of adult Encyclopedia Brown stories...

Darth -- that is a comparison I almost made!

I read Tales Of The Black Widowers a few weeks ago. Thought about posting some comments, but never got around to it.

Writing straight Mysteries doesn't seem to be one of his strong suits. Oddly enough the early Foundation stories (pre-Mule) work well as Mysteries. (You have to work out what the solution to the two crisises will be.) But while these were okay, they weren't as good as they could have been.

I was annoyed with Henry providing the solution to every crime from 2 onward. Even the late explanation that all Henry does is listen to what everyone else says & then come up with a solution they overlooked seems forced. It's called Tales Of The Black Widowers, not Tales Of Henry, Superdetective. I think the solutions should have been arrived at by all assembled putting together the info and a different person coming up with the particular solution.

The most annoying unexplained mystery however is, How did these people get together and form the Black Widowers anyway? I was reading the stories and for the life of me could not figure out how these people would ever get together. More than most stories the Black Widowers feel like an author assembled collection of personality types. They have different backgrounds, different jobs, they are different ages. I can see no reason for why these six people got together & decided to form a club.

I don't have the book anymore, was The Obvious Factor the one with the professor telling of the woman psychic? If so the thing which annoyed me the most about that was that Henry said the thing that tipped him off was that every time a Widower came up with a possible solution the professor had an explanation that nullified it. Ummm, excuse me, but most of the darn stories in the book feature the Widowers coming up with solutions and the guests having an explanation. How was this time any different?

A somewhat ludicrous angle was the idea that anything said in the room stayed there and could not be discussed outside the room.
1. Who thought that up & why?
2. Is this even realistic? Don't people like to talk about new things they learn? Don't people occasionally use things they learn in other aspects of their lives?
3. Would this really hold up in a court of law? I don't think so. (Shame Asimov is dead. Might make for an interesting story to have the Black Widowers being forced to testify in a court of law.)
4. This rule seems to come an go as the author pleases. In the story with the guy who never told a lie or the Widower's dead sister this rule was stressed, but in the story of the matchbook code, or Yankee Doodle, you know that the goverment spook & the general are going to use this knowledge to prosecute.

Glad I'm not the only person familar with Encyclopedia Brown1