Nero Wolfe and The Blue Ridge Betrayal

Nero Wolfe and The Blue Ridge Betrayal | A Rex Stout Legacy Series

When a Virginia Tobacco Dynasty's Sins Come Home to Roost—With Deadly Consequences
The case arrives at Nero Wolfe's Manhattan brownstone on a Wednesday morning in September, carried by Katherine Ashford—a woman whose Virginia aristocracy is written in every line of her bearing, whose grief is controlled but unmistakable, and whose conviction is absolute: her father was murdered, and she knows exactly why.
Harrison Ashford, patriarch of a tobacco dynasty worth tens of millions, collapsed during a family dinner at their Blue Ridge Mountain estate five weeks ago. The doctor ruled it heart failure. But Katherine watched her father die, and she saw what the country doctor missed: the almond scent of cyanide, the muscle rigidity inconsistent with cardiac arrest, the speed and violence of symptoms that spoke not of natural death but of calculated murder.
Harrison had been planning something extraordinary—a twenty-million-dollar restitution to the descendants of freed Black families his great-grandfather had cheated out of their land during Reconstruction. He'd discovered documentation proving the Ashford fortune was built on systematic theft, intimidation, and fraud in the 1860s and 70s. And he'd decided that truth and justice mattered more than family legacy or business reputation.
Five people violently opposed his plan: his eldest son Robert, who manages the tobacco business and fears financial ruin; his younger son Thomas, an attorney who argues the legal liability would be catastrophic; his daughter Julia, a widow who manages the estate's agricultural operations and worries about her teenage son's inheritance; and their spouses Margaret and Elizabeth, who've married into wealth and have no intention of watching it disappear into "sentimental restitution for crimes committed before we were born."

Disclaimer:

This is a fan-made storytelling video inspired by the world of Nero Wolfe, the legendary detective created by The Legend itself, Mr.Rex Stout. I don’t own the characters, settings, or any rights related to the Nero Wolfe universe—all credit goes to the original author and rights holders. This video was created purely out of appreciation for the classic detective fiction and to share that love with fellow fans.

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