Vaudeville trouper, film and musical comedy star, comic quiz-master on radio and TV, Groucho Marx was at one end of the spectrum of the four Marx Brothers: his brother Harpo, at least in character, didn't talk at all and Groucho almost never stopped. And just as technology sends his antics along to each new generation, Groucho himself now appears in print in a new and unsuspected career through the medium -- the kind of medium that involves table-rapping, that is -- of Ron Goulart's imagination.

With the full concurrence of Groucho Marx Productions, Goulart casts Groucho in a role that suits him beautifully -- he hands him a magnifying glass and sets him up on the hunt for a murderer -- in between bouts of verbal war with the sponsor of his new radio show. Although both Groucho and his Watson, a young scriptwriter named Frank Denby, would gladly murder the sponsor, who wants to call the show "Groucho Marx of the Famous Marx Brothers Joins Forces with Deeply Satisfying Orem Brothers Coffee to Bring You Goofy Mysteries Every Week", it's a real murder that the zany actor investigates -- the killing of a young actress whom he knew a few years back, and whose death he doesn't believe to be the suicide the police have ruled it.

Through the streets of 1937 Golden Age Hollywood the pair go, along with Frank's new girlfriend, finding clues, getting death threats, and cracking wise so much in the way of the real Groucho's patter that one wonders whether Goulart isn't really possessed by a very funny, very astute spirit.

"Groucho Marx" has always meant laughter and fun. In this hilarious story, it still does.