The fourteenth and final collection of Nero Wolfe novellas, published posthumously in 1985, ten years after Rex Stout's death.
The first story in the collection, "Bitter End," is also the first Wolfe novella written, published in The American Magazine in 1940 but not rediscovered until shortly before Stout's passing. After Wolfe discovers quinine in a jar of liver paté, he becomes determined to uncover the mystery behind it; minutes later, Amy Duncan comes to the brownstone to consult Wolfe about the tampering. The investigation of Tingley's Tidbits leads Archie to the company offices, where Archie finds business head Arthur Tingley with his throat cut and Duncan knocked unconscious at the scene. Papers found at the scene soon take Wolfe beyond tampered food and into the familial status of Tingley's adopted son Philip, but of the multiple threads emanating from Tingley, only one points in the direction of his murderer.
The other two stories are alternate drafts of previously published Wolfe novellas. "Frame-Up for Murder" is Stout's rewrite of "Murder Is No Joke," identical in plot and murderer to the original story except for the character of Flora Gallant, now young, vivacious, and actively hooking Archie into the mystery. "Assault on a Brownstone," the final story, is Stout's original draft of "Counterfeit for Murder." While the set-up and murderer's identity are identical, the original saw Hattie Annis, not Tammy Baxter, as the murder victim, while the Treasury Department takes a more direct investigation into the counterfeit money left at the brownstone.
Tropes in this work: (Tropes relating to the series as a whole, or to the characters in general can be found on Nero Wolfe and its subpages.)
- Adaptational Personality Change: Flora Gallant in "Frame-Up for Murder", the second version of "Murder Is No Joke." In the first version, Flora is a rather frumpy, unattractive and acid-tongued woman who isn't really that likeable and who, while she kick-starts the plot and ends up becoming a key suspect, doesn't really show up much or do much when she does show up. In the second version Flora still does much of the same things as the first version, but she's now younger, more attractive and friendly, is a bit more of a sweet-natured ingenue, has a flirty and charming dynamic with Archie, shows up more frequently and ultimately plays a more active and memorable role in the story (for example, rather than just showing up at Wolfe's door, as in the first draft, she actively tails Archie while he's tailing a client on an unrelated job in the second version, thus gaining his interest). On reading the two versions back to back, one can clearly tell that Stout enjoyed writing the second version of Flora more than the first.
- Alternate Continuity: "Assault on a Brownstone" can be considered this in regards to "Counterfeit for Murder" as both are essentially the same case with different murder victims: Tammy Baxter in "Counterfeit" and Hattie Annis in "Assault." "Assault," published posthumously, is generally agreed to be be an inferior earlier draft, not least because Hattie is widely agreed to be one of the most interesting clients in the entire series. "Frame-Up for Murder" may also technically be this, as while the plot is more-or-less the same the character of Flora Gallant is entirely different; in this case, the second version of Flora is generally agreed to be the more likeable and interesting one.
- Batman Cold Open:"Frame-Up for Murder" begins with Archie tailing some guy we never meet called Jonah Putz as part of an unrelated minor job that Wolfe has agreed to do. Archie freely admits to us that Putz has no importance to the story we're about to read and isn't particularly interesting himself, but only brings him up because while he was doing this he noticed he was in turn being tailed by Flora Gallant, who will be important to the actual story.
- Chekhov's Gun: Arthur Tingley's felt hat, mentioned as being left on its hook at the scene of his murder, conceals the sample jar incriminating Gwendolyn Yates.
- Conviction by Contradiction: Gwendolyn Yates tells Wolfe during their talk about arriving home at a quarter past six and leaving an umbrella in the bathtub to drain. But it did not start raining until seven o'clock, suggesting to Wolfe that the speaker had a reason for lying about arriving home earlier than in actuality. Indeed, that reason is because she was murdering Arthur Tingley.
- Demoted to Extra: The personalities, backgrounds, and alibis of Hattie's tenants get far less attention than in "Counterfeit for Murder."
- Meaningful Name: Jonah Putz, The Unseen and unrelated tailing job that Archie is engaged in at the beginning of "Frame-Up for Murder" before Flora Gallant attracts his interest. A "putz" is Yiddish slang applied to a stupid / inconsequential person, and to "putz around" is to engage in a pointless, meaningless activity — both clues that Putz has no real involvement in the case. It also helps that the term was originally slang for one of The Body Parts That Must Not Be Named.
- Newhart Phone Call: Invoked in "Bitter End." The killer makes a phone call to the man she'd killed earlier that day in the presence of a witness, and then pretends that he answered the phone and talked with her.
- Red Herring: In "Bitter End," Phillip blackmailing his biological mother has nothing to do with the murder.
