This is book 6 of the "Nero Wolfe Continuation" series.

This note does not contain major spoilers for the book.

Both Wolfe and Archie say out loud that they don't have much use for religion. But this book was published in the 21st century, despite its continuing characters from Stout's series going back to the 1930s.

On the other hand, they do the work, even if the motivation is partly to keep Fred Durkin from being falsely convicted of the murder.

Hey, Archie is driving a Mercedes! His gun is still a Marley, though. The fake brand names in the original series were one of the interesting historical artifacts.

The whole mess is made possible by Durkin hanging up his gun on a coat rack. Covered by his coat, not directly visible, but a loaded gun just hanging there. Not suitable storage standards!

Also, Durkin mentions that Archie always goes out armed when on business; but he doesn't, in the Stout books. He has a policy of going armed when he's out on a murder, but he's not 100% about following his own policy, and it doesn't extend to business in general.