"Three Witnesses"

Three novellas by Rex Stout. Three shorter-than-full-length stories about Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, and the rest of the West 35th Street crew. Three enjoyable reads. "Three Witnesses" is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to it here.

This is one of my favorite Wolfean collections because it includes the novella, "Die Like a Dog," which stars a Black Labrador Retriever named (at various points in the novella) "Bootsy" or "Jet." I prefer the latter. So does Nero Wolfe. However, the important point, as far as "Three Witnesses" is concerned, is that this particular witness is a dog who, quite simply, behaves the way a normal dog behaves - and, by doing so, helps Wolfe discover and pin down a murderer. It's a wonderful story. 

The other two stories in this collection, "The Next Witness" and "When a Man Murders..." are also quite good. In the former, Nero Wolfe himself is called as a witness at a murder trial - a position which he finds impossible to tolerate, so he leaves the courtroom, evades the police and attorneys (who want to charge him with contempt of court) and manages to both solve the case and introduce his solution at a murder trial, which - as any trial attorney might tell you - takes some doing. As for "When a Man Murders..." we have the odd situation of a dead man who manages to come back to life - only to be murdered. And, once again, the case hinges on the critical testimony of a witness.

Three cases. Three witnesses. Quite a collection. It's still in print - and also available as an e-book for the Amazon Kindle.

"Three Witnesses," published in 1956, is another entry in the Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge at the My Reader's Block blog, where you can find a lot of other suggestions about great mysteries published prior to 1960.

Comments

[Yvette]

I'll be reading THREE WITNESSES again at some point. Though I'm not sure I own that one. I'll have to see. I'm currently reading OVER MY DEAD BODY which features Wolfe's
'daughter' and some very funny lines.

Finished up NOT QUITE DEAD ENOUGH - two novellas in which Archie is in the Army during the war. I'm not reading all the Wolfe books indiscriminately - just the ones I really and truly love. It's still an official binge though. :)

[Les Blatt]

Yvette, I hope you do have (or can get easily) THREE WITNESSES. "Die Like a Dog" alone is worth the price of admission - it's funny, as always, and the dog steals the show. Who knew Wolfe had a weak spot for dogs? Archie certainly didn't!