An ingenious story- as successive charges of plagiarism are brought against writers and publishing houses- and confirmatory evidence presented which seems to make it something more than blackmail. Nero Wolfe and his legman, Archie, are no sooner brought in on the case than murder succeeds murder and the usual collision occurs between Wolfe and Cramer and his cohorts. The very multiplicity of charge and counter-charge makes for a certain amount of confusion at the start, but the unexpected setbacks Wolfe encounters and the unusual resolution of the mystery strike a new note by an old hand.