Write Out Loud (Reviews and Writing)

“…gripping back then…a little dated now…”

Asimov is best known for his science fiction writings – in particular his I, Robot series and Foundation trilogy (later expanded to several more books). While many avid sci-fi readers still know and pay homage to the great writer (and might, occasionally, actually read his stuff), few realise that he also wrote detection mystery short stories too.

The Black Widowers stories were written for the Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, starting in 1971 (the year of my birth – make of that what you will). Apparently inspired by a very real club – The Trapdoor Spiders – who don’t solve mysteries but do meet on regular occasions and are strictly male only, Asimov spins yarns surrounding a group of men who meet once a month for a meal and drinks at a particular club, for which one is selected as ‘host’ and controls conversations, and where someone invites a guest to be ‘grilled’ by the others.

These guests invariably bring a mystery with them: something that has occurred in their lives for which they do not know the answer. It might be a crime or an unusual happening or some other tangible oddity for which all their attempts to sort it for themselves have come to nought.

Also invariably, The Black Widowers fail to solve the mystery too, after many questions and hypotheses are offered and rejected. They all then turn to Henry, the butler who has been serving them quietly and listening to everything.

You’re probably ahead of me now and yes, you’re right, Henry always solves the mystery. While that might seem a little bit Miss Marple (and Asimov admits he wrote these wanting to do something Agatha Christie in style), both the kind of mystery and the scene settings get a reasonable mix up to keep things interesting. For instance, The Lullaby of Broadway takes the group out of the club and has Henry himself as the guest, which leads to an interesting story. The first story in the collection, The Acquisitive Chuckle, also ends up telling us a great deal about the kind of person Henry is, which allows the other stories to make more sense why a menial butler should be so clever. There’s nothing corny here.

Overall, Asimov’s stories work even though they are more than fifty years old. The only story I felt was a dud was Miss What?, which felt like Asimov was really stretching for something clever. Otherwise, these stories are pretty cool.

You’ll especially like them if you like his sci-fi short stories because you could argue that it is actual detection mysteries that Asimov always writes; it’s just that normally he sets them in space. All his I, Robot and similar stories follow the principle that a main character or characters have a significant problem and various solutions are ruled out as impossible, yet inevitably a solution is found by ‘out of the box’ thinking. The Black Widowers is simply the same, perhaps with less life-threatening conditions than found in the sci-fi stories, just merely set in New York.

I believe there are several more books in the series – not just the twelve stories here. Asimov was still writing into the 1990s and that included his beloved group of amateur detectives. Will I read them? Well, the ADHD person inside me loves to collect collections, so it is very tempting. Are the stories good enough? I’m less sure. I do like them but part of that is nostalgia for a kind of writing that was very 60s-70s – exactly the first ‘proper’ books I was reading as a teenager. They were gripping back then; they’re a little dated now.

So I might just leave it at this first book and let memories be good ones, rather than read more and be disappointed. I’m glad I read these and I could easily see a TV series updating them and making something hugely popular out of them; but it won’t be these stories such a series would use. Inspired by, yes. Same characters, yes. But we need mysteries with a little more bite to them these days. These stories are for fans. I think that’s good enough.

My Verdict:

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

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