"Fourth of July Picnic" was first publish in "Look" as "The Labor Union Murder" and later republished with this title as part of the book "And Four to Go." In "Fourth of July Picnic," a restaurant workers' union is having a Fourth of July picnic in a remote meadow on Long Island. The program offers speeches from figures in the restaurant business, including Nero Wolfe who has been the trustee for Rusterman's Restaurant since the death of his old friend Marko Vukcic. One of the organizers has eaten some bad snails and is taken ill on a cot in the tent where, after some speeches are given, he will be found dead covered by a blanket that conceals the knife in his back. The next day, to avoid being implicated, Wolfe and Archie take refuge in Saul Panzer's apartment, where they have arranged to meet with the others speakers. Wolfe does not yet have any idea of the murderer’s identity and motive but he bluffs him into identifying himself.
Author
Rex Todhunter Stout (1886 – 1975) was an American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975 (A Family Affair). The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century.
