In The Black Mountain, Stout makes a remarkably eloquent and insightful contribution to the anti-Communist literature of the 1950s. Having chosen to make his master detective a Yugoslav by birth when he originated Nero Wolfe over twenty years earlier, Stout takes advantage of that fact by arranging for Wolfe to return to his muchchanged homeland in pursuit of a murderer. The victim is Marko Vukcic, Wolfe's oldest friend, but Stout never lets this become a tale of personal vengeance. Wolfe sees beyond his own grief, even after his adopted daughter becomes a second victim: "Many men are responsible for Carla's death, but if I were to name one it would be Georgi Malenkov. He is the foremost champion of the doctrine that men and women must be subjected to the mandates of despotic power." Throughout the narrative, Stout sustains a brilliant attack on that poisonous notion...