The Black Widowers - Isaac Asimov

I'll have to ask my dad whether he bought this with me in mind (because it's Asimov), or for himself (because it's a series of mysteries). Sci-fi isn't really dad's bag, so it's possible the name didn't even register with him. Never can tell how much he's paying attention, given my tendency to ramble.

In the foreword, Asimov says he loved mysteries, and wanted to try writing some that weren't the least bit related to science fiction. Several of the ones included here were originally published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, but he's included a few that weren't, made a few changes in response to reader corrections, and gone with his original titles, which were sometimes changed by the magazine's editors.

Every story involves a group of friends having a monthly get together at a restaurant. They call themselves the Black Widowers, I guess because no wives are allowed (Asimov apparently took this idea from a story about a similar group in Hollywood in the postwar period). It's the six of them, and their waiter, Henry, with one of them serving as host each month, and bringing a guest. Normally, the six set about questioning the guest, with questions such as 'How do you justify your existence?' which would rather set my teeth on edge, but I suppose the host warns his guest ahead of time. What happens here, though, is that a guest has a problem, and as he lays it out, the six attempt to solve it.

Out of the dozen or so, I was able to solve about 4 of them. Some almost immediately, some a half-page before the answer. What made it a worthwhile read was that he stuck to a consistent cast, and had certain bits carry over from one story to the next. He did note he removed some of that for the magazine, since a reader might have missed a prior issue, but collected in one volume, there's no worry. It lends a sense of continuity, and allows him to build the characters up more than any one of the fairly short stories would allow by itself.