Classic Mysteries

"The Case of the Seven Sneezes"

"Seven sneezes?"

Why yes. For Private Investigator Fergus O'Breen, it's the number of times he will sneeze whenever near a long-haired cat. Never six times. Never eight. Always seven sneezes. And it's a bit of information which will prove instrumental to O'Breen in solving a 25-year-old murder - and some much newer ones.

Back in 1915, the wedding of Horace Brainard and his wife Catherine was spoiled by the brutal murder of one of the bridesmaids. It was never solved. 25 years later, many of the same people who made up that wedding party are attending another party to mark the couple's silver wedding anniversary. Instead they find themselves trapped on a remote island with a psychotic killer who has more murders in mind. Fortunately, P.I. Fergus O'Breen has been added to the party because they're going to need all the help they can get...

That's the quick outline of The Case of the Seven Sneezes, by Anthony Boucher - yes, that Anthony Boucher, for whom the world mystery conference is named. The book was written in 1941, and is one of a handful of mysteries written by Boucher. It's the subject today of my audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you are welcome to listen to the entire review by clicking here.

Before we go any farther, I do have a word of warning for cat lovers. I know that there are readers who will not read a book in which an animal is hurt, especially a pet – and that happens in The Case of the Seven Sneezes as a major element in the plot. It happens offstage, but it is what it is, and it's an important story point. 

Once you get beyond that, however, you have an excellent mystery. In addition to being a powerful and influential newspaper mystery critic, Boucher also wrote several mysteries himself, including some featuring the adventures of Fergus O’Breen. The Case of the Seven Sneezes was one of them. No impossibilities or locked rooms this time, but a pretty solid plot, interesting suspects, and a detective who puts his rather peculiar form of allergy to work capturing a killer. At the moment, it's primarily available in e-book formats.

"Death of a Doxy"

Back before the days of what is now called (with some justification) "the sexual revolution," there were names - frequently hurtful names - used to "define" women like Isabel Kerr. There’s “showgirl” for example – but no, Isabel’s sister objects violently to the use of that word; Isabel, she says, was an “actress.” Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe’s right-hand man, looks a little closer:

“Okay. An actress leaves the theater, takes a three-hundred-dollar apartment, has no job, eats well, dresses well, has a car, uses thirty-dollar perfumes. Who wouldn’t know?"

But Isabel Kerr was dead - murdered. And – with the police focused on a suspect who is both a friend and sometime colleague of both Archie Goodwin and his boss, Nero Wolfe, and as there seemed to be no other apparent candidates for the role of first murderer, it was clear that Wolfe and Archie were going to have to get involved in the search for the real killer. It's the story told in Death of a Doxy (1966), by Rex Stout. It's the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you're welcome to listen to the complete review by clicking here.

Death of a Doxy begins with Archie Goodwin discovering the body of Isabel Kerr in her apartment. Archie has gone there to try to retrieve some items which have enormous blackmail potential. Instead, he finds Isabel Kerr, done in by a handy blunt instrument. Isabel Kerr, in fact, had two lovers unknown to her family and even to most of her friends. One was really top-secret: a very rich man of power and influence who could easily afford to keep Isabel Kerr in her $300 dollar a month apartment. Her other lover on the side, so to speak, was a private detective who worked often for Nero Wolfe. And as the police found that detective’s fingerprints all over everything in Isabel Kerr’s apartment, and knew nothing about that lover on the side, they not too surprisingly arrested him as a material witness in the case, and seemed quite content to wait for conclusive evidence against him to turn up. But Wolfe and Archie knew some of Isabel Kerr’s secrets – enough to convince them of their colleague’s innocence – and they used their knowledge to bait a trap for a killer and blackmailer.

It's a fast-moving story, with some wonderful and memorable characters, and I think you're sure to enjoy it. It appears to be most readily available (and affordable) as an e-book.

Feom the Vault: "The Girl in the Cellar"

The name of Patricia Wentworth isn't nearly as well known or as often discussed by classic mystery readers as, say, Agatha Christie. Perhaps it should be. Wentworth wrote dozens of fine mysteries. More than 30 of them featured Miss Maud Silver, a retired governess who became a remarkably talented private "enquiry agent." She could fade into the background of a room, doing her knitting - and listening to conversations among suspects in any number of crimes. She's very much like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in that regard, and it's a grave mistake to underestimate her. One of my favorite Miss Silver books is The Girl in the Cellar, Wentworth's last book and one of her best, published in 1961, the year the author passed away. I did an audio review for the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago. Here's a transcript of that review - and, as always, there has been some minor editing involved:

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It must be a terrifying sensation not to know who you are. All the young woman knew was that she was standing, apparently on a stone step. She had no idea of her name, or how she got there, or where she was. All that she knew – somehow – was that there was the body of a dead girl at the foot of the stairway where she stood. And when she panicked and ran out of the house…she had the very good fortune to run into Miss Maud Silver – who believed her rather incredible story and agreed to help her. It happens in The Girl in the Cellar, the last book Patricia Wentworth ever wrote about Miss Silver.

Patricia Wentworth had a long and distinguished writing career, over the course of nearly half a century. While she wrote more than sixty mysteries in all, she is certainly best remembered for the 32 books featuring Miss Maud Silver, a former governess, who began a career as a private enquiry agent after her retirement, with remarkable success.

Wentworth’s books certainly fit into the niche of crime stories that today we call “cozies” – the violence is generally well off stage; there is usually a Young Damsel in Distress, there will be an Enigmatic Young Man who may (or may not) really be in love (or fall in love) with that distressed damsel; there will be People Who Should Know Better who manage to put the hero and heroine in considerable jeopardy – and there is always Miss Silver, often sitting quietly in a corner of the room, seemingly absorbed in her knitting, to identify the guilty and ease the romantic paths for both the Damsel and the Young Man.

But if Wentworth’s books tend to follow a pattern, she is quite adept at coming up with variations on the theme, introducing interesting and sympathetic characters. And in this last of her Miss Silver books, The Girl in the Cellar, published in 1961, Wentworth starts off remarkably well by taking us inside the mind of a terrified young woman. Listen to this first paragraph, which I think is really amazing:

She looked into the dead unbroken dark and had neither memory nor thought. She was not conscious of where she was, or of how she had come there. She was not conscious of anything except the darkness. She did not know if time had passed. There seemed to be no sense that it went by, but it must have done, because the moment when she knew nothing except the darkness had changed into a moment in which she knew that her feet were on stone, and that she must not move from where she stood.

I think that passage conveys very well some of the sense of nightmare in which this young woman suddenly finds herself trapped. Not even knowing her own name, she only knows – somehow – that there is a dead body at the foot of the stairway on which she is standing. And when she manages to find a flashlight in her bag – for she does find that bag at her feet – and descends the stairs, she does indeed find the body of an unknown young woman, who has been shot.

And so our memory-less young woman runs from the house…and gets on the first bus to pass by…and that’s where her luck begins to turn, for she meets Miss Silver, who is struck by the young woman’s look of utter desolation and shock and who takes her under her wing.

And we are off, trying to determine who this young woman is – and who is the girl in the cellar? Along the way, the young woman will – eventually – find out who she is, what she was doing in that house, and the identity of the dead girl. And that knowledge can be a dangerous thing indeed.

It’s all handled quite deftly. And if the clues aren’t exactly thick on the ground, with Miss Silver staying largely in the background, and there’s too much reliance on coincidence to both solve the case and to rescue the heroine – well, perhaps I’m being unfair. I’ve read several of the Miss Silver books, and I have to say that I genuinely consider this one to be among the best I’ve read. It’s good to find The Girl in the Cellar is still available in paperback as well as e-book and audiobook editions. If you’re new to Maud Silver, this will make a fine introduction.

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You can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.

Next: The Greek Coffin Mystery, by Ellery Queen.

From the Vault: "Gambit"

Along with many of my visitors to this blog, I admire and enjoy all of Rex Stout's books about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I am particularly fond of Gambit, one of only two Nero Wolfe adventures* to have a single word as its title. But that word is really singularly appropriate, for it works in several different ways in the course of the story - including the gambit used by Wolfe to resolve the plot. I did an audio review of Gambit for the Classic Mysteries podcast several years back, and I hope it will convince you that you really would enjoy reading the book. Here's a transcript - as usual, slightly edited. And what is a gambit, you ask? Read on!

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In the world of chess, the word “gambit” refers to the opening move by a player in which a pawn or other chess piece is sacrificed to gain a strategic advantage. It is an interesting concept – particularly when it becomes the central image in a mystery featuring chess, chocolate, poison – and one of the world’s great detectives, Nero Wolfe. Gambit is the title of one of Rex Stout’s mysteries featuring Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin.

Gambit, originally published in 1962, may not be Rex Stout’s most ingenious book, but it certainly has one of the best opening scenes of any story featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. And, for that matter, it also has one of the best office confrontations – what Archie calls “one of the best charades Wolfe has ever staged.”

Let’s begin with that marvelous opening scene: Nero Wolfe is seated in front of the fire in the front room of his house on 35^th street in New York City, tearing pages out of the new, third edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary, Unabridged – and feeding them to the fire. As a lover of the English language, Wolfe cannot stand what he sees as the heresies of the new dictionary. Among other things, it encourages the use of the words “imply” and “infer” interchangeably. If this seems petty to you, well remember that Wolfe is a genius, and presumably must be allowed some leeway in defining acceptable behavior, especially in his own home. I don’t know if that conclusion is inferred or implied. But that image, of Wolfe sitting in front of the fire, feeding the offending dictionary to the flames, page by page, is – to me, at any rate - one of the most memorable opening scenes in any of the Nero Wolfe books.

This touching scene of domestic tranquility – well, I don’t know what else to call it – is broken with the arrival of a would-be client. Sally Blount has a problem: her father has been arrested for murder, with all the evidence seemingly weighted against him. Matthew Blount is accused of murdering Paul Jerin, a genius at chess, who was playing a dozen games of chess simultaneously with a dozen different opponents when he was poisoned. Seems that Matthew Blount gave Jerin the poisoned hot chocolate…and took the chocolate away afterwards and washed out the cup as well. The police think they have an open and shut case. Blount’s daughter Sally wants Wolfe and Goodwin to investigate and find a way to clear her father – despite the fact that neither her father nor his lawyer wants Wolfe to be hired.

And we’re off and running on a case which provides Wolfe with remarkably few clues. Archie wisecracks his way through the narration, as usual, with lots of wonderful lines. Wolfe gathers some significant clues – including one from Inspector Cramer who, as usual, doesn’t see the significance of his own information. There is another murder. And, in the end, even when Wolfe and Archie know the identity of the killer…they realize they haven’t a shred of evidence.

And that’s when Wolfe sets up that wonderful charade, as Archie calls it. As usual, he calls all the suspects together in his office and…

Ah, but that would be telling. You’ll have to read it yourself to find out what happens – and why.

Gambit can be a little frustrating because there are so few clues to work with. One result of that, however, is that when Wolfe and Goodwin get the information they need to identify the killer, the astute reader ought to be able to follow their logic and reach the same conclusion. But Gambit is much more about relationships – between Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, between Wolfe and Inspector Cramer, between Sally Blount and her parents. In the end, Gambit is a very satisfying mystery.

Oh, by the way, both Webster’s Third International Dictionary – the one Wolfe found so offensive – and the earlier, Second Edition are both still available. Speaking as an old English major, I’d have to say – Wolfe was right. Go with the second edition.

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*The other single-word title is Fer-de-Lance. If there are others I've missed, I'm sure I'll hear about it from someone!

You can listen to the complete audio version of this review by clicking here.

Next: The Girl in the Cellar, by Patricia Wentworth.

"The Black Mountain"

Any fan of Rex Stout's books about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin knows that - as a general rule - Mr. Wolfe refuses to leave his home on business. But there are exceptions. One of those exceptions saw Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin actually leave the United States for a long (and, especially for Wolfe, uncomfortable) journey to Montenegro, in the heart of Europe, thousands of miles from home. It's a story of promises kept, and a story of great personal loss for Nero Wolfe. It's the story told in Rex Stout's 1954 novel The Black Mountain, and that book is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You're welcome to listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.

Marko Vukcic was Nero Wolfe's oldest and closest friend. The two had been boys together, growing up in Montenegro. Wolfe eventually came to New York City; so did Marko, who owned and ran Rusterman's, the only restaurant that Nero Wolfe would visit once a month for dinner - and Marko, in turn, would visit Wolfe's brownstone monthly to enjoy one of Fritz Brenner's excellent dinners with Wolfe and Archie.

And then one Thursday evening in March of 1954, Marko Vukcic was murdered – shot three times by someone who had been sitting in a parked car outside the New York apartment building where Marko lived.

The job of finding his killer was a debt of honor, a promise to be kept by Nero Wolfe. And that is why Wolfe and Archie Goodwin left New York behind and traveled all the way to Montenegro – where, they were told, Marko’s killer had fled – with the goal of bringing him back to face justice, dead or alive. And in doing so, Wolfe would face another very personal loss…

Most of the Nero Wolfe books fall into the traditional detective story mold, with the emphasis on the detective's skills and the characters of some of the 35th Street regulars. The Black Mountain is different, falling more into the international action-adventure category. It's the only one of the Wolfe books where Goodwin and Wolfe reverse their usual roles - Archie doesn't speak the language, so Wolfe must brief Archie rather than the normal situation in which Archie gathers information and briefs Wolfe on his investigations. What you have in The Black Mountain, in my opinion, is a book that should not be missed by any Wolfe fan. Unfortunately, the last time I checked, it appears to be out of print in paper; there is an e-book version available as well as a couple of audiobooks. It's worth the effort to find and read The Black Mountain.

From the Vault: "Homicide Trinity"

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 35^th 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.

From the Vault: "The Thin Man"

This week's contribution from the Classic Mysteries vault is one of the great American P.I. books written by one of the great practitioners of the American detective story: Dashiell Hammett's marvelous book, The Thin Man. I think it's worth a re-reading - and, if by some chance you've never read it, what are you waiting for? My audio review, done for the Classic Mysteries podcast several years back, tries to explain why it is such a classic. As usual, the transcript has been slightly edited:

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The year was 1933. The great – failed – social experiment known as prohibition was winding down, much to the relief of a great many otherwise-law-abiding citizens. In a New York City speakeasy, a former private detective named Nick Charles was standing by the bar, minding his own business, having a drink or two while waiting for his wife to finish Christmas shopping. A young woman approached him, and began telling Nick about her father who seemed to have disappeared. She seemed to think that Nick should help find him.

Nick Charles really didn’t want to get involved. But each time he proclaimed his lack of interest, more and more people – including the police, the missing man’s family, a few assorted mobsters and more – became convinced that Nick knew something about the disappearance of that missing man – who may, by the way, have murdered his mistress. Eventually, he found himself forced into investigating the whole business – although he was careful not to let it get in the way of his serious drinking.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s one of the true classics of the American detective story – The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett.

For a man widely respected for his enormous influence on the development of American crime fiction, Dashiell Hammett left us remarkably few works – a handful of novels, a slightly larger handful of short stories. But those books really helped to define the dominant school of hard-boiled detective fiction in America.

The last of Hammett’s novels was The Thin Man, which appeared in 1934. It introduced the character of Nick Charles, a one-time private detective, who married a wealthy socialite, Nora, and quit his day job to manage her…or their…finances. As we will see, he also drinks a great deal. Alcohol pretty well floods this novel – just about everybody drinks, here in the waning days of Prohibition, with the only regrets likely to come on the morning after.

At any rate, Dorothy Wynant – that girl who approached Nick at the bar - tells him that she’s looking for her father, who seems to have vanished. Nick – soon joined by both Nora and their dog, Asta – is sympathetic, but tries not to get involved.

No such luck. Very soon, we learn that the missing man’s mistress has been murdered. Everybody – including the police – seems to believe that Nick knows a great deal more about both the disappearance and the murder than he is telling. And – with Nora’s encouragement - he soon finds himself forced into the center of the case. There are more murders and a fair amount of double-dealing, not to mention some excellent plot twists, before the full story is revealed and Nick is able to turn over the true culprit to the police.

The Thin Man is vintage Hammett, a good, hard-boiled detective story, with a fair amount of dark humor. The book became the basis, first for a movie based on the novel itself, and then a series of follow-up movies using the Nick and Nora Charles characters in new plots. Curiously, The Thin Man, which was Hammett’s last novel, never really spawned any sequels in print, although he did some work on the movies as well.

If you have seen any of those movies, you may remember that they are comedy-mysteries – there’s a lot of excellent banter between Nick and Nora, in particular, and a great deal of wise-cracking. They are a blend of sophisticated humor and crime stories.

The book, while it has more than its share of witty dialogue and really clever one-liners, is a little darker, a little grimmer than the movie – which is only to be expected in the kind of hard-boiled books turned out by a first-rate author. Here’s an example: near the end of the book, when Nick is explaining what really happened, Nora gets impatient with his explanation and reminds him that it’s all just a theory – that the accused criminal is supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Nick responds this way:

"That’s for juries, not detectives. You find the guy you think did the murder and you slam him in the can and let everybody know you think he’s guilty and put his picture all over newspapers, and the District Attorney builds up the best theory he can on what information you’ve got and meanwhile you pick up additional details here and there, and people who recognize his picture in the paper – as well as people who’d think he was innocent if you hadn’t arrested him – come in and tell you things about him and presently you’ve got him sitting on the electric chair."

Now that’s not exactly light dialog, and it’s fairly typical of the thought processes that we see and hear from Nick during the course of the book. There’s also a fair amount of physical violence – the police in this novel seem predisposed to slap suspects around first and ask questions later. But this is a hard-boiled novel, not nearly as much the suave, sophisticated comedy-mystery that we know from the Thin Man movies, although there is some great and very funny dialog.

One final point: although the movies kept reusing the words “Thin Man” in the title – After the Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, and so forth – and make it clear that they are referring to Nick Charles – Nick isn’t the thin man of the book’s title. The thin man was the disappearing scientist who is the elusive subject of Nick’s search in the novel.

Writing about Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler – widely considered Hammett’s successor in shaping the American detective story – had this to say about Hammett:

"Hammett was the ace performer... He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before."

Chandler was exactly right. If you haven’t read The Thin Man – or, for that matter, any of Dashiell Hammett’s other works – you have a treat in store.

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You can listen to the original audio review in its entirety by clicking here: 

 

Next: The Corpse Steps Out, by Craig Rice.

 

If you've never seen the movie version of The Thin Man, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, it's available via Amazon (and presumably from other video sources as well).

From the Vault: "The Final Deduction"

Over the past several years, I have often raided the Classic Mysteries vault to bring back some of my favorite Rex Stout mysteries, especially the ones starring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. And why not? After all, these books are well-written, well-plotted and populated with regular series characters who are great fun to be with. Today, I am bringing back another of those books, The Final Deduction, which has the distinction of dealing quite neatly both with a blackmail plot and also with murder. Nothing that Wolfe and Goodwin can't handle quite neatly - and also unusual enough to keep your interest piqued. Here's a transcript of the audio review I presented on the Classic Mysteries podcast several years back. As usual, it has been lightly edited.

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The woman standing on Nero Wolfe’s doorstep was very rich. She was also very frightened. Her husband, she said, had been kidnapped. The kidnapper wanted half a million dollars. And, he had warned her, if you want to see your husband alive again, tell nobody. So she went to Nero Wolfe, to ask him to keep her secret – but find her husband. And if the worst happened, if the kidnapper decided to kill the victim, she wanted Wolfe to investigate and find the person responsible. And she was prepared to pay a fabulous sum of money to get her husband back – alive. So Nero Wolfe went to work – and, of course, put Archie Goodwin to work as well. The results are outlined in The Final Deduction, by Rex Stout.

I suppose that a cynic might say that in The Final Deduction, Nero Wolfe was only in it for the money – although I’m not sure that isn’t true of most of his cases. Wolfe is lured into the case by the very large sum of money that Althea Vail was prepared to pay for the return of her husband, Jimmy Vail. So when Jimmy Vail is released by his kidnappers and returns – alive – Wolfe is willing to agree to the victim’s plea that he say nothing about it for a couple of days. After all, the kidnapper had threatened Jimmy with death if he spoke out too soon.

Only there are complications. For one thing, a couple of murders suddenly bring the police on the scene – police who know nothing about that kidnapping. And Wolfe and Goodwin are forced into some pretty fancy footwork to avoid talking to the cops in order to keep their promise of silence.

And, in the meantime, there’s also a lot of ransom money that has gone to someone…perhaps even to someone in, or close to, the Vail family. And Wolfe will be offered the chance to earn a significant portion of that money – if he can help find it.

It all makes for an entertaining case, with plenty of surprises and twists to it. And, as is usually the case with Nero Wolfe, a great deal of the reader’s pleasure will come from spending time in that wonderful brownstone on West 35^th Street in New York City, where Wolfe and Goodwin live and work. It’s always fun to have dinner with them, courtesy of Wolfe’s chef and major domo, Fritz Brenner. After one of those meals, for example, Archie describes Wolfe’s conversation this way…quoting now:

At the dinner table, in between bites of deviled grilled lamb kidneys with a sauce he and Fritz had invented, he explained why it was that all you needed to know about any human society was what they ate. If you knew what they ate you could deduce everything else – culture, philosophy, morals, politics, everything. I enjoyed it because the kidneys were tender and tasty and that sauce is one of Fritz’s best, but I wondered how you would make out if you tried to deduce everything about Wolfe by knowing what he had eaten in the past ten years. I decided you would deduce that he was dead.

As I say, I tend to read and re-read Rex Stout’s books for that kind of wisecracking detail about life in the brownstone. The Final Deduction deals with kidnapping – something of a rarity in these books – as well as murder. It’s a very tightly-written book, one of the shortest, I think, of all the novels – really it seems like little more than a novella stretched out for a few thousand more words. That’s not a complaint; I think Stout’s best stories are the ones he tells in the most concise terms. I do recommend The Final Deduction.

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You can listen to the original audio review by clicking here.

Next: Necklace and Calabash, by Robert Van Gulik

From the Vault: "Murder by the Book"

My visit to the Classic Mysteries vault this week has brought forth another of my favorite detectives - two of them, actually: Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. They rarely fail to give readers a great deal of pleasure. I think the case they tackle in Rex Stout's Murder by the Book is a particularly good one: what is there about a particular book - an unpublished manuscript, really - that is proving so deadly that everyone who has read it appears to have become a murder victim? I reviewed it on the Classic Mysteries podcast some years ago, and here is a transcript (slightly edited) of that audio review for your reading pleasure:

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You have probably heard other readers describe a book as a real “killer” book. Generally, that means a really terrific, interesting book, an especially powerful one, a book so good that you can’t put it down. That sort of thing. As a general rule, we don’t mean for the phrase to be taken literally. But, as with any rule, there must be an exception – and there is, of course. Consider the time that Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin came across what apparently was a real “killer” book – so real that everybody who might ever have read it turns up as a murder victim. It happens in Murder by the Book, by Rex Stout.

As an author, Rex Stout had a great deal of respect for the written word. Books play an important part in several of the Nero Wolfe stories – whether as indicators of Wolfe’s mood (based on what he is reading and how he is reading it) or, occasionally, as central plot points in a given story.

Certainly that’s very much on display in Murder by the Book, published in 1951. The book begins with a sort of preface: Inspector Cramer comes to visit Nero Wolfe to ask a favor – not a regular occurrence, to be sure. The police are trying to figure out who killed a man whose body was found floating in the river. The man had been a confidential clerk at a high-powered law firm. There aren’t very many clues – but there is one: a list of names, apparently made by the victim. Police can’t seem to trace anyone on the list. Cramer wants to know if any of the names mean anything to Wolfe. They don’t. End of request, and, for the moment, the end of that murder case.

Several weeks later, Wolfe gets a new client: a Midwestern businessman wants to hire Wolfe to find out who killed his daughter. He thinks the police aren’t giving the case the attention it deserves – they seem to think it was a hit-and-run accident. In the course of laying out the facts for Wolfe, he shows the detective a letter from his daughter, who had been reading unsolicited manuscripts received by her employer, a New York City publisher. In that letter, she mentions having received a phone call from the author of one of those manuscripts – and Wolfe recognizes the name of the author as being one of the names on that list which Inspector Cramer had shown him several weeks earlier.

So Wolfe begins his investigation – and there is, very soon, another murder. The victim this time is a typist who apparently had typed the same unpublished manuscript that the previous victim had read.

The conclusion is unavoidable: it appears that anyone who might have read that manuscript…will become (or already HAS become) a murder victim.

So Wolfe begins investigating in earnest. That investigation takes him back to the powerful law firm where the very first victim had been employed – a law firm whose leading partner had been disbarred for bribing a jury foreman.

There will be another murder before Wolfe is able to crack the case – and it will take one of his most daring office charades to trap the killer and explain the motives behind all the murders.

As always, Archie Goodwin’s comments and wisecracks help to keep the book moving. Clues are fairly scarce on the ground – this killer, apparently, makes few mistakes – but the plot is pretty solid and some of the characters – particularly the second victim’s father (who is Wolfe’s client) and the third victim’s mother – add a degree of poignancy that you don’t always find in a Nero Wolfe mystery. Murder by the Book remains available, and you can easily find it in print or as an e-book.

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You may listen to the complete podcast recording of my review by clicking here.

Next: Clouds of Witness, by Dorothy L. Sayers.

"Curtains for Three"

According to The Wolfe Pack's web page, Rex Stout wrote 33 novels and 41 novellas (extended short stories) featuring Nero Wolfe and his sidekick and narrator, Archie Goodwin. A fair number of readers will tell you that they prefer the novellas, many of which seem more focused on the basics of plot and character than some of the novels. As a general rule, the novellas often appeared first in popular magazines, and were then collected into volumes of two-to-four novellas.

One of the collections which I re-read quite recently is called Curtains for Three, originally published in 1950 after the stories had appeared in The American Magazine.  As the title implies, it contains three of the novellas, and the collection is the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

The first story is called “The Gun with Wings.” A man and a woman come to Wolfe’s office, wanting to hire him. The woman’s husband apparently committed suicide several months earlier. But the visitors say it was murder – and they want Wolfe to prove that neither one of them could have committed the murder. But an infuriated Wolfe insists that one of them must be lying about a critical piece of evidence. It’s a tightly-written story, ending with one of the most daring office-confrontation scenes  that can be found in any of the stories.

That’s followed by “Bullet for One.” A man who goes horseback riding almost every day rides out through Central Park one morning. In a little while, his horse – with an empty saddle – returns home to its stable. When police look for the rider, they find his body under some bushes. The police are unable to make any headway, and a group of the victim’s relatives and business partners show up at Nero Wolfe’s office. They want him to come up with evidence to prove that one particular member of their company had committed the murder. Wolfe stops them by asking – simply – “what if he didn’t?” Once again, Wolfe’s ingenuity comes up with a logical solution.

The third novella, called “Disguise for Murder,” is my favorite among the three stories in this collection. This time, Nero Wolfe is dragged into a murder case that he cannot avoid – and, to come up with a solution and with proof of the murderer’s identity, Archie will find himself in considerable danger. I do think you’ll enjoy it – in fact, I’m sure you’ll like all three of the novellas in Rex Stout’s Curtains for Three. It’s readily available as an e-book, and there seem to be a fair number of paperbacks available as well.