This mystery from one of America's best-loved writers features one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time - Nero Wolfe. An orchid-growing, gourmandizing, demanding genius, Wolfe solves this case with the able assistance of his legman, Archie Goodwin, who narrates with his usual wry humor. Mr. Whipple objects to his son's fiancee - her skin is too light - and Nero Wolfe reluctantly agrees to dig up dirt on the do-gooding heiress. But Archie Goodwin doesn't get far before the girl is found bludgeoned to death in a Harlem tenement, and young Duncan Whipple is arrested for the crime. Archie brings around everyone the couple knew, and in a case tinged by prejudices of black and white, Wolfe looks penetratingly at motive and means to find the murderer.