A couple of months ago, when I brought my old podcast of Rex Stout's And Be a Villain back from the Classic Mysteries vault, I promised to work on reviews of the other two novels which provide the second and third parts of what Nero Wolfe fans refer to as the "Zeck Trilogy." And Be a Villain was the first book in a three-part series, in which Nero Wolfe finds himself facing a man named Arnold Zeck, the kind of super-villain made popular by the work of many other authors, such as Sax Rohmer, Edgar Wallace or "Sapper." Today, let's talk about the second part, The Second Confession, first published in 1949. (We'll look at the third and final part, In the Best Families, next week.) It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here.
It begins with a very rich businessman, James U. Sperling, who wants to hire Nero Wolfe to find evidence that would prove that the man his daughter wants to marry, Louis Rony, is a card-carrying member of the Communist Party U.S.A. Wolfe gets a phone call from Arnold Zeck ordering the detective to drop the case - but Wolfe, of course, never takes orders from anyone. Wolfe sends Archie Goodwin to the Sperling home to pursue his investigation. What he finds is that Rony may or may not be a Communist – but he certainly appears to have close ties with Arnold Zeck’s criminal organization.
Wolfe's investigation, inevitably, draws Zeck into it – and Zeck issues a warning – or, really, a blunt command to Wolfe: abandon your investigation of Louis Rony. Wolfe does not take kindly to it. And the result is a show of force by Zeck’s organization. In order to continue his work on the case, Wolfe and Archie are forced to change some of the things they do – among other things, Wolfe actually leaves the brownstone where he lives and works in order to investigate a critical point. Archie notes:
“He was not really smashing a precedent. It was true that he had an unbreakable rule not to stir from his office to see anyone on business, but what had happened that night had taken this out of the category of business and listed it under struggle for survival.”
Certainly Wolfe and Zeck appear headed for a showdown. But a murder dramatically shifts the focus of Wolfe and Archie’s investigation. And the Zeck story line continues to play a significant role in the book, though it is no longer – for now – a life-and-death struggle. Instead, the focus returns to the activities of the Communist Party U. S. A. – and Wolfe’s closing gambit in the book successfully uncovers a traitor as well as a murderer.
The Second Confession is, as I noted earlier, one of my favorite books about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. The plotting is more complex than it is in many other books in the series, and Archie’s usual wisecracking, while it is certainly still evident, seems somewhat more subdued when he is confronted by the reality of Arnold Zeck. Next week, we’ll talk about how that confrontation will play out.
While most of Rex Stout's books about Wolfe and Goodwin can be read in any order, I would strongly suggest reading these three novels in order - begin with And Be a Villain, then read The Second Confession, and finish up with In the Best Families. These links go to each of the books independently. However, back in the 1970s, Bantam published a single volume, called Triple Zeck, which contained all three of the novels in a single volume. It's long out of print, but Amazon's independent booksellers (and, I'm pretty sure, your own favorite indie book stores) appear to have a number of copies available, if you would rather get them in that format.
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