Our weekly trip into the Classic Mysteries vault is offering a 3-for-1 special this week. It's a trio of reviews of Nero Wolfe novellas by Rex Stout, originally published in book format as Homicide Trinity in 1962. This is a slightly edited transcipt of my audio review, which originally appeared several years ago on the Classic Mysteries podcast. As usual, it's free for the reading - so please read and enjoy!
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Nero Wolfe’s day didn’t start off well in his old brownstone on West 35th Street. At lunch that day, he managed to get some sauce on his tie. So he took off the tie and left it on his desk. Then an unexpected visitor – a potential client – showed up at the brownstone, unannounced – but Wolfe was upstairs with his orchids, so Archie Goodwin let the woman come in and sit in the office to wait while he went upstairs himself to argue with Wolfe about seeing her. And while the visitor waited, somebody came into the brownstone and strangled her. Using Nero Wolfe’s spotted tie. It’s no wonder that Wolfe was more than a little upset. You can read all about the case – and two other murders that wound up enraging Nero Wolfe…in Homicide Trinity, by Rex Stout.
One of the reasons why I reread Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books as often as I do is because Stout was a master of the specialized short story form known as the novella. It’s longer than a normal short story, long enough to permit some character and plot development, but it’s shorter than a book, meaning that the writing and plotting is often a lot tighter than in some of the full-length novels.
During Stout’s lifetime, the novellas generally appeared in groups of three or four that were published together in book form. That’s the case with Homicide Trinity, originally published in 1962. It contains three novellas, each of which stands alone and unrelated to the others – and each with a puzzle that manages to enrage Nero Wolfe.
Take the first story, “Eeny Meeny Murder Mo,” which I described earlier. Someone actually has the audacity to commit a murder in Nero Wolfe’s office, using the great man’s own necktie. The word “enraged” probably doesn’t begin to describe Wolfe’s feelings, and if you are familiar with the series, you can probably imagine the reaction of Wolfe’s long-time nemesis, Inspector Cramer of the New York City police department, when he hears that there has been a murder in Nero Wolfe’s office using an article of Wolfe’s clothing. Wolfe feels that he must solve the murder himself, to soothe his outraged dignity. The trouble is that there are four principal suspects, any one of whom might have had the motive and the opportunity for the crime. It is a situation, as Archie observes, of “eeny meeny murder mo,” You’ll enjoy the scheme employed by Wolfe to solve this one, which involves one of Wolfe’s signature office confrontations.
The second novella, “Death of a Demon,” begins with a woman coming to Nero Wolfe carrying a gun: this, she says proudly, is the gun she will NOT shoot her husband with. She has brought it to show to Nero Wolfe so that – if her husband is shot – he would tell the police and they would arrest her. The idea, obviously, is that despite provocation, she cannot now kill her husband, because someone would know of her plans. The only trouble is that her husband is already dead – yes, shot to death. And Wolfe finds himself again dragged into a murder case against his will – and in the position this time of having to navigate between protecting a client and obstructing justice.
The final novella in the “Homicide Trinity” collection is called “Counterfeit for Murder,” and, in some ways I think, it’s the most enjoyable one in the collection. It features one of the most memorable and unlikely clients in any of the Wolfe books, a woman named Hattie Annis. She keeps a boarding house for aspiring actors. She comes to the brownstone because one of her clients apparently has been involved in creating and passing counterfeit money. Hattie Annis is very different from most of the other women in the Wolfe books – she has a very strong character, refuses to be cowed by either Archie or Wolfe, and hates the police, which tends to make everyone’s life more difficult. As someone quickly tries to use a stolen car to run down Hattie Annis, it would seem that she’s in serious danger. And it doesn’t help matters when one of her boarders is murdered…or when a secret service agent shows up at Wolfe’s door demanding that he and Archie come clean about this counterfeiting business.
Hattie Annis is a wonderful character – she’s middle-aged, distinctly unattractive (according to Archie, who considers himself something of an expert in the field). She puts up with nothing from anyone, including the police and secret service. She calls Archie “Buster” and flabbergasts Wolfe by asking him to feed her lamb kidneys bourguignionne. And I can think of very few characters – male OR female – who have ever successfully flabbergasted Nero Wolfe. The mystery itself is okay – another of those plots where the villain has to be one of a handful of people – but Hattie Annis is truly an extraordinary character. Even Wolfe grows to admire her.
All of the stories, as always, are narrated by Archie, and they are full of the kind of wisecracking dialogue that we have come to expect from a Rex Stout book. Let me give you just one example: in “Death of a Demon,” Wolfe is asking Archie if their female client is likely to answer questions from the police. Wolfe speaks first:
Will she report what she told me?
“No.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “That’s why I put up with you; you could have answered with fifty words and you did it with one.”
“I’ve often wondered. Now tell me why I put up with you.”
“That’s beyond conjecture.”
Sorry, but I love that exchange. For fans of the regular characters, you’ll find them all here, with plenty of work to do, particularly Inspector Cramer. It you prefer your Nero Wolfe in shorter, bite-sized chunks, Homicide Trinity will satisfy your hunger.
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If you would like to listen to the original recording of the review, please click here.
Next: An English Murder, by Cyril Hare.
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