title: Puzzles of the Black Widowers
author:  Isaac Asimov 
description: The fifth Black Widowers collection has stories from 1984 to 1989, 11 appearing originally in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine . Asimov again uses a real-life New York dining club as model for the Widowers. In every story a dinner guest is asked, "How do you justify your existence?" The guests--graduate student, government spook, bookseller, plumber et al.--dispose of the question, and then pose a puzzle for the Widowers to chew over--over and over. Invariably, after the chewing, the deferential, cerebral waiter Henry, also a Widower, comes up with the solution. Said solution turns on some piece of arcana--Bermuda traffic rules, the element with the most syllables--that most readers won't know or care about. Each story is less than two dozen pages, a relief because the writing is like unbuttered, unsalted popcorn: harmless but not satisfying unless you're already addicted. Asimov assures us the Black Widowers "will continue as long as I do." Long life anyway, Dr. A. <br />Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: antique IsaacAsimov Banquets Of The Black Widowers es
  
  SUMMARY: Chronicles the adventures of a club of men, the Black Widowers, who
  meet once a month for dinner at the Milano restaurant and attempt to solve a
  series of puzzles
  
  IsaacAsimov calibre 5.9.0 31.1.2021 50d0df82-ab2e-48af-a16a-9a08c0c9157d 1.0
  Fawcett 1986 9780449209806
  
  BANQUETS OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS
  
  ISAAC ASIMOV, 1984
  
  Sixty Million Trillion Combinations
  
  SINCE IT WAS Thomas Trumbull who was going to act as host for the Black
  Widowers that month, he did not, as was his wont, arrive at the last minute,
  gasping for his preprandial drink.
  
  There he was, having arrived in early dignity, conferring with Henry, that
  peerless waiter, on the details of the menu for the evening, and greeting each
  of the others as he arrived.
  
  Mario Gonzalo, who arrived last, took off his light overcoat with care, shook
  it gently, as though to remove the dust of the taxicab, and hung it up in the
  cloakroom. He came back, rubbing his hands, and said,