Category: Book Review

Book Review, Golden Age Article, Nero Wolfe

Book Review: Triple Jeopardy

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Triple Jeopardy contains three Nero Wolfe novellas originally published in 1951 and 1952. Without any further adieu, let’s take a look at them: 

Home to Roost: 

A young man suspected of being a Communist but who had told his Aunt he was really an undercover FBI agent was murdered and his Aunt and Uncle believe Communist agents did it and want Wolfe to find out the truth. A less engaging story that still manages to pack a punch with a surprising ending.

Rating: Satisfactory

Cop Killer:

A classic Wolfe story that finds two refugees from the Soviet Union who are in the country illegally suspected of murder after fleeing the crime scene which is the shop of Wolfe and Archie’s barber.  They take refuge in Wolfe’s home without Wolfe fully understanding the police want them. Wolfe’s sense of hospitality won’t allow him to turn them over to the police and Wolfe and Archie have to find out who the real killers are.

This is a story with a lot of fascinating features with us seeing their Barber shop. Some great interactions, including the police entreating Archie for a help with a difficult manicurist and Wolfe and Archie snowing Inspector Cramer by telling him that the suspects were there but in such a way he wouldn’t believe them. Archie explained to the frightened migrants, “They (Hitler and Stalin) tell barefaced lies to have them taken for the truth, and we told the barefaced truth to have it taken for a lie.”

Rating: Very Satisfactory

The Squirt and the Monkey:

This one begins with some strained credibility. For once, Wolfe is willing to take a job and Archie doesn’t want him to. A big shot on the Comic Strip, Dazzle Dan wants to use Archie’s gun to help recover his own stolen gun. He’s willing to pay Archie $500 for the use of his gun. Despite Archie pointing out that the most Wolfe could clear after taxes and expenses was $45, he’s off to the strange house that produces Dazzle Dan complete with monkey and an unusual cast of characters.

Through a complex series of events, a man is murdered with Archie’s gun, the client lies about why he’d hired Wolfe, and Cramer informs Wolfe that his license will be suspended. Once again you have to suspend disbelief as we’ve seen Wolfe insist on getting in writing what he’s being hired for multiple times.

However, this is when the story gets interesting. Wolfe goes to work in earnest and has his lawyer file a lawsuit against the client for a million dollars and begins an earnest study of the Dazzle Dan comic to unravel the mystery of what goes in the house that created him. 

Overall, there is much about this story that makes it unique. Unfortunately, Stout, has a lot in here that’s hard to buy, so I can only rate it:

Rating: Satisfactory

The stories vary in quality but solidly clever solutions and some great settings in the last two stories make this a solid read.

Collection Rating: Satisfactory

You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.

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Book Review, Golden Age Article, Nero Wolfe

Book Review: And Four to Go

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What could be better than the numerous Nero Wolfe books including three Novellas? How about one featuring four? Well, it doesn’t quite work out that way, but there are still some worthwhile stories in the lot:
 
“The Christmas Party”
 
Archie connives to get a fake wedding license for a dancing partner who wants her to boss to marry her. The boss is being stubborn so Archie gets a fake marriage license blank with both their names on it to force the issue.
 
When Wolfe starts to get bossy and unreasonable in demanding Archie drive him to meet an orchid expert, Archie springs the marriage license on Wolfe and tells him that he’s getting married. Wolfe is displeased but Archie gets out of the errand.

Archie ends up attending the Christmas Party where the boss is murdered and Santa mysteriously disappears after the crime is committed. Archie also can’t find the fake wedding license which has him at risk of a forgery charge. When Archie gets home he finds out that Santa was none other than Nero Wolfe, spying on him and his supposed fiancée. To make matters worse, a jealous young woman who believes the woman Archie helped was the murderess demands that Wolfe connive to help frame the woman. Otherwise, Wolfe will have to endure the embarrassment of being exposed as Santa. Wolfe and Archie are in a pickle and it’ll take all of Wolfe’s wits to get them out.
 
The story’s plot is priceless and along with some memorable characters, I’ll give it a:

Rating: Very Satisfactory

“Easter Parade”
 
A wealthy philanthropist, who is also an orchid grower has developed a new species of orchid that he’s keeping under wraps. Wolfe has to see it, and the only chance he has is that the philanthropist’s wife is wearing one of the orchids. So he has Archie hire a two bit hood to snatch the orchid as the lady is exiting the church and entering the Easter Parade. The orchid snatch is done right as the woman dies and Wolfe finds himself in a pickle, as police want to find the orchid snatcher.
 
The best part of this story is the look back at the Easter Parade, an event that was much more widely practiced both in New York and across the country in years past. In essence, Stout gives us a portrait of the Easter Parade in its heyday. 
 
The plot itself has problems. While Wolfe can tend to childish behavior in pursuit of his goals, this one takes the cake. The action has several accomplishments. Wolfe’s reputation and his license are both put at risk. More than that though, the stunt is itself quite mean and both the lady and her husband are sympathetic characters who have dedicated themselves to the betterment of others and  have done nothing to agrieve Wolfe aside from refusing to let him look at a flower. The idea of hiring a criminal to assault two saintly people coming out of church on the holiest day of the Christian year does little to make one sympathetic as Wolfe and Archie try to avoid embarassment.
 
Of course, Stout could have turned this around a little bit with a clever solution, a dramatic stunt to find the real killer, some clever interaction between Wolfe and Archie. Unfortunately, the story is wrapped all too easily on the spur of the moment. with Wolfe barely moving a brain cell. The story was first published in the April 1957 issue of Look and has all the earmarks of being written to satisfy the commercial requests of a magazine wanting a story for its April issue rather than the cleverness of a typical Wolfe story. If another writer wrote it, I’d say it was flummery. However, as Stout wrote it, I must give it a:
 
Rating: Pfui
 
Fourth of July Picnic:
 
After the death of Marco Vukcic, Wolfe assumed a key role in ensuring the qualtity of Rusterman’s restauraunt with Wolfe’s cook Fritz providing some consulting assistance. A restaurant union leader seized on this to try and force Fritz into the union and this became an annoyance to Wolfe. In order to rid himself of the annoyance, Wolfe agrees to speak at the Union’s 4th of July Picnic.
 
However, before Wolfe’s speech, the man who’d been annoying him is murdered after having taken ill. Every speaker went in to the tent he was resting in for one reason or another including Wolfe, but police suspect someone came through the back of the tent because they’d rather not suspect prominent citizens of the crime (other than Wolfe and Archie). However, Archie knows that a woman was watching that back entrance and no one had gone in but withholds the fact because he’s annoyed by the police and didn’t want He and Wolfe to be held as material witnesses in rural New York. When Wolfe finds out about the witness, he has to solve the crime quickly or risk going back as a material witness to be held by a very unhappy and unfriendly district attorney.
 
While not up to the best standards of Wolfe Stories, it features a good amount of atmosphere and a clever enough solution to make it:
 
Rating: Satisfactory.
 
“Murder is No Joke”

If Murder is No Joke had been set at the fall, this would have been a four seasons collection. As it was, Stout appears to have abandonned the seasonal stories after two middling efforts. Murder is No Joke is a much more solid story.
 
A woman comes to Wolfe’s office concerned that her brother’s business is being destroyed by a woman who has some hold over her. She wants Wolfe to investigate her but doesn’t have the money to pay him. However, she offers to pay Wolfe to call the woman. Wolfe dials the number and is promptly insulted by the woman and then hears sounds that indicates violence has occurred. Archie calls the woman’s office and finds she has indeed been murdered with Wolfe and Archie as likely ear witnesses.
 
However, Wolfe has a sense that someone is trying to make a fool of him and sets out to uncover the truth of what really happened and how the suicide of a formerly promising actress plays into what happened. He sends Archie down to the office where the murdered woman worked to ask about correspondence from the actress who committed suicide.
 
The highlight of this story is when Archie wants to know why Wolfe is an investigating and Wolfe and Archie share a moment of detective zen when Wolfe opens Archie’s eyes to a key clue. All in all, the story has a good cast of characters and a solution that really shocked me. 
 
Rating: Very Satisfactory
 
Overall, Four to Go features two middling stories in between two solid ones that make up for their lack.
 
Overall Collection Rating: Satisfactory

You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.

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Book Review, Golden Age Article, Leonidas Witherall

Book Review: Beginning with a Bash

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Beginning With a Bash was the first Leonidas Witherall novel written by Phoebe Atwood Taylor under the pseudonym Alice Tilton, published in the UK in 1937 but not in the US until 1972 due to some dubious advise from teh publisher.

The novels opens with Leonidas, former headmaster of a private school down on his luck even though he looks like William Shakespeare accept for his glasses.. The depression wrecked his retirement funds and now he’s reduced to being a book store’s janitor. A former pupil who is also down on his look comes in on a Saturday. He’s been accused of stealing from his former employer and is wandering the streets with his last remaining valuable possession, a set of golf clubs. Very quickly, a body discovered near the store and it turns out to be the former employer, who was killed by a blow from a blunt object. The police quickly take Leonidas’ former pupil into custody who conveniently had a grudge against the dead man and was carrying a bag of gold clubs that would be perfect to bludgeon the man to death.

However, Leonidas doesn’t believe the young man is guilty and sets out to prove it by Monday morning and find the missing money to boot. Leonidas sets off with the book store owner but quickly acquires a motley crew of assistance including a Italian gangster and his star-crossed girlfriend who is also the sister of her boyfriend’s Irish rival and the dead man’s housekeeper, as well the widow of a former Massachusetts Governor.

This book is a classic vintage style madcap comedy mystery that sees Leonidas and friends going from one jam to another. The book is light reading with the gangster being more in the style of Damon Runyan than Francis Ford Coppola. The book does include a few regrettable uses of the n-word (although I should note that this may have been removed from some modern editions), but if you can get past that, it’s a fun and exciting story full of improbable twists and turns sure to amuse you for hours.

This book has been re-released for the Kindle by St. Swithin Press which has also re-released the last Leonidas Witherall novel, The Iron Clew as well as several other novels in Taylor’s Asey Mayo series.
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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Red Threads

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We continue our review of Rex Stout’s non-Nero Wolfe mysteries with 1939’s Red Threads.

Red Threads is often presented as an Inspector Cramer mystery: A case where Inspector Cramer is the star and solves the case without any aide from Nero Wolfe. It’s understandable to do that, but lets be clear Inspector Cramer is not the star of this book.

Millionaire Val Carew is founded murdered in tomb of his late wife who was an Indian princess. Carew, who was considering remarrying a white woman, was found scalped.

Jean Farris is in love with the dead man’s son, Guy but becomes angry when he asks her to return a skirt jacket she’d made with rare genuine bayetta thread that Guy had given her from his own jacket. Farris storms off from after this odd request and is then knocked out and wakes up in her underwear with the skirt and jacket gone. She then discovers the reason for the interest in the thread: the murdered man had a thread of bayetta in his hand.

Jean resolves who robbed her and who committed the murder and clear her beloved. It is Jean, not Inspector Cramer who is the heroine of the story and focal point of the story. She makes for a charming and intelligent amateur detective who dominates the narrative and lifts the whole work. Cramer is merely John Law. Stout saw no reason to work up another New York City Police Inspector when he’d created a perfectly servicable one for Nero Wolfe.

Inspector Cramer is not an entirely unsympathetic character in the story. Cramer is an honest cop, even if his methods are not necessarily laudable. Forced to return from his first real vacation in years, Cramer takes to the case with bulldog determination and shows a certain cunning in catching a suspect even if it turns out to be the wrong suspect. And once Jean sets him on the right track, he ties everything up neatly.

I can’t really blame Cramer for missing the solution to this case. At least five people including Jean withheld evidence from him and only one of them was in on the murder. Kind of hard to get the right conclusion without the  right information.

The book’s portrayal of Native Americans was a subject of some concern, indeed the whole foreword to the book was consumed with a critique of this aspect of the book. Woodrow Wilson, the only full-blonded Indian in the story talks like he’s ready to appear in a Republic Western or take up duty outside of a Cigar Store. Stout would treat a Native American character by the same name with far more sophistication and respect thirty years later in Death of a Dude. To me, it was only a minor distraction because the character’s part is relatively minor.

The final chapter is a bit silly and overdone, but overall the Jean Farris character carried the story through with a little help from Inspector Cramer making Red Threads an enjoyable 1930s mystery even without Nero Wolfe.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5.0

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Inka Dinka Doo

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In Inka Dinka Doo, Jhan Robbins writes a biography of Jimmy Durante, beginning with his birth to a large immigrant family in the family’s kitchen to his early days playing dives in New York as a ragtime piano players to vaudeville success and motion picture hits and misses all the way to his death in 1980.

To Robbins, its a mystery. In the introduction, he lays out well what the mystery is, “Durante wasn’t a singer like Sinatra any more than he was a comic technician like Bob Hope. He lacked the polish of Johnny Carson, the bluntness of Humphrey Bogart.  When malapropisms and errors were deliberately inserted into his scripts he would mispronounce the mispronunciations. Other entertainers squeezed laughs out of vulgarity but not he. What was his secret?”

Robbins had gotten to know Durante over more than 20 years. The book is chock full of stories that tell the tale of Durante’s uncommon decency and kindness. Robbins’ book could seem one-sided but as Robbins stated, he looked desperately to find Durante detractors but couldn’t find any. The secret to Durante’s success was his genuine warmth and heart which spills out over the nearly 200 pages in Inka Dinka Doo. 

We learn of Durante’s closest and deepest friendships with his longtime partners Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson as well as Eddie Cantor. His rocky career during Prohibition and his even bumpier landing at MGM in the 1930s where he continually drew forgettable roles even after getting a high dollar star contract.  We learn of his career on radio and triumphant entry into the new age of television.

The book is littered with anecdotes that show Durante’s heart and spirit. Durante was an extremely friendly person. In fact, Hollywood tour buses made a point to stop by his house knowing that he would run out and greet the bus, sometimes with a pitcher of lemonade to sell. It was Durante’s friendliness that got him out of the speakeasy business as an undercover prohibition agent came to the door and asked for him. Durante came down and the agent greeted him by name and Durante responded warmly. Then the agent complained of not being admitted and Durante let the guy in and the agent gathered evidence and the The Club Durant was shuttered the next evening.

Robbins also wrote of Durante’s loyalty and concern for others. When a fading Buster Keaton was released by MGM, Durante pleaded with Louie B Mayer on Keaton’s behalf and won Keaton’s reinstatement. When attending  a Dodgers’ game, Durante silenced a heckler who was mocking young future Hall of Fame Catcher Roy Campanella because he was black. Durante was kind and considerate even though he pronounced Campanella’s name as “Cantorbella.”

The book is full of such stories and makes for a light and engaging read with chapters slice up perfectly in digestible chunks.

I’d offer two criticisms of the book. First, I think Robbins did a bit of an injustice to both Durante’s first wife (who left Durante a widower in 1943) in the degree of his negative portrayal of her. Much of the source material for this information appears to be Durante’s longtime friend Eddie Jackson who the first Mrs. Durante didn’t get along with. What Robbins ended up with was a somewhat one side portrayal of Jeanne Durante. In addition, as Robbins stated, Durante never criticized or spoke negatively of Jeanne and so Robbins’ portrayal of Jeanne wasn’t quite in the spirit of Schnozolla.

In addition, the book has a somewhat uneven quality to it. For example, Robbins writes in painstaking detail about the one flop after another that MGM put Durante into. He then tells us that Durante’s pictures from the mid-1940s were better, but mentions no film by name between In the Army Now (1941) and The Last Judgment (1961). The book also tells us little about Durante’s latter day career as a ballad singer, a remarkable new direction for his that occurred at age 66.  Of course, Inka Dinka Doo was released before Sleepless in Seattle which created new interest in Durante’s ballads with Durante’s performance of “As Time   Goes By” and “Make Someone Happy” featuring prominently in the film.

Overall, there’s more to Durante’s life and career than this 200-page volume provides, however Robbins wrote with obvious affection for his subject and this book is not a bad place to start if you’re interested in learning about one of America’s best-loved entertainers. The book is out of print but may be available at your library (or through an interlibrary loan) or also as a used book through Amazon.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5.0 stars.

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Book Review: Three Doors to Death

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Three Doors to Death is a Nero Wolfe short story published in 1950 featuring three novellas published from 1947-49 in American Magazine.

It begins with a classic introduction from Archie Goodwin as he wants to avoid any confusion by strangers to the Wolfe genre who might think because Wolfe didn’t get paid in two of the cases that Wolfe makes a practice of solving murder cases pro bono. He also explains the symmetry of the stories. It does a great job setting the tone for what follows:

“Man Alive”

A fashion designer hires Wolfe because she believes she’s seen her Uncle at a fashion show. The problem? Her uncle committed suicide in spectacular fashion jumping into Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park a few months before his partner does himself in. It turns out she was right about him being alive but not for long. Her uncle is murdered in her office and she becomes a suspect even though the police have no idea who the victim is. Wolfe has to find out who did it.  This one is solved with a clever deduction based on the behavior of one of the heirs.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

“Omit Flowers”

As a personal favor to Marko Vukcic, Wolfe undertakes to clear a former great chef of the murder of the boss’ husband and his heir apparent as head of a large chain of restaurants.  Wolfe has no lead, but  Archie makes a lucky guess that leads to startling information that the widow has been stabbed but she won’t reveal the identity of the perpetrator.

This is a very well-balanced story that shows Archie’s  intuitive reasoning in action. That allows him to uncover information another detective would have missed and that Wolfe absolutely needed.  The mystery is engaging and the identity of the actual perpetrator provided a solid surprise ending.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

“Door to Death”

Door to Death may be the crown jewel of this collection. When Theodore has to take care of his ailing mother and take an indefinite leave as orchid nurse for Wolfe, Wolfe is left with the full time job taking care of them. This because so intolerable that Wolfe not only leaves the brownstone, but gets in a car and travels to hire away Andy, the gardener of a wealthy family to tend the orchids. However, before Wolfe can get away with the replacement orchid tender, a dead body is discovered and Andy is the prime suspect.

Wolfe’s determination to find an acceptable replacement for Andy was enough to interest him in solving the case. However, when a young woman has the impertinence to call him Nero, Wolfe becomes determined to solve the case even as he’s being ordered out by the local police. Wolfe goes to extreme measures to get back into the house and obtain an opportunity to investigate it.

This was a very satisfying story that showed both Wolfe’s genius and self-awareness as Wolfe insists on staying away from home knowing that if he goes home, he’ll be impossible to get back out. And this is a case Wolfe wants to solve.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

You really can’t go wrong with any of the stories.  The whole collection is Rex Stout at his best and the best novella collection I’ve read so far.

Overall Rating: very satisfactory

You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.

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Book Review, Golden Age Article, Sherlock Holmes

Book Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles

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The Hound of the Baskervilles marked Sherlock Holmes return to literature after he was killed off by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in “The Final Problem” eight years previously. Doyle had not yet brought Holmes back to life. This story was set prior to “The Final Problem.”

Sir Henry Baskerville is the heir of his late uncle Charle’s Estate. However, his uncle passed away under mysterious circumstances and one of Sir Charles’ friends, Dr. James Mortimer comes to Holmes to ask for assistance. Local legend is that Sir Charles was killed by a ghostly hound that haunts the moor to avenge the sins of one of the Baskerville ancestors. Mortimer confides to Holmes that he found a hound’s footprint at the scene of the death.

Intrigued, Holmes takes the case, and the case gets more interesting when Holmes spots a man following them inLondonand someone steals one of Sir Henry’s boots. Surprisingly, Holmes doesn’t go to Dartmoor, but sends Watson to investigate and report his finding to Holmes.

Watson find strange goings on: suspicious-acting servants, a dangerous convict on the moor, and of course, the legend of the hound.

This remains perhaps the most oft retold Holmes story and a pioneering mystery story that has been ripped off repeatedly over the years. While its a Holmes story, with Holmes absent from the main action for about half the book, it gives Watson a chance to shine and show his intelligence and resourcefulness.

Despite its popularity, I didn’t enjoy this as much as The Sign of Four. However, this is a matter of taste. Sign of Four was an action packed thriller while Hound of the Baskervilles relied much more on a build up of suspense. This one builds slowly and in a less skillful hand, it would have been easy for The Hound of the Baskervilles to become boring, but Doyle sensibly used Watson’s reports to Holmes and Watson’s diary entries to avoid bogging the story.

Overall, the Hound of the Baskervilles deserves its reputation as a true detective fiction classic.

Rating: 4.75 out of 5.00

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Book Review: Curtains for Three

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Curtains for Three was published in 1951 and featured three Nero Wolve novellas published from 1948-50. As usual, we’ll review the individual story and then include an overall rating for the book:

“The Gun with Wings”: The title sounds similar to a Father Brown story (”The Dagger with Wings”) but the story has an unrelated plot. The police have included that an opera star committed suicide. However, his wife and her lover aren’t satisfied because they found the body and when they found the gun, it was across the room. When they returned and the police arrived, the gun had moved to the floor by his body. Wolfe has to find out how the gun was moved and he knows his clients are lying.

The story is perhaps the most claustrophobic Wolfe case I’ve ready. Archie only leaves the house in one scene. Other than that one scene, all the on-stage action is confined to the office.  This means that the vast majority of the story is composed of Wolfe questioning people. 2/3s of the way through, I was convinced this was going to be the first Wolfe story I gave a Pfui rating to. However, Wolfe recovers when he plays Inspector Cramer off of his lying clients in a hilarious way. Once the lies are cleared up, Wolfe provides a flawless sage solution. It’s not quite Before I Die or Help Wanted Male, but I’ll give it a

Rating: Satisfactory

“Bullet for One”: An industrial designer is shot to death and his daughter and associates hire Wolfe to solve the case. One big problem for Wolfe is that the man his clients believe did it has an airtight alibi.

Some of the best Nero Wolfe novellas featuring a very memorable distinctive and it’s no different with Bullet for One and this one will always stand out as the one where everyone got arrested. One by one, Wolfe’s clients as well as their favorite suspect are arrested (most for issues not stemming from the murder investigation.) The story’s chocked full of humor and a solid conclusion typical of the best Wolfe stories.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

Disguise for Murder

This one was adapted for A Nero Wolfe Mystery and it was also done for CBC’s Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe. So, it’s a stand out whenever anyone looks at adapting the Wolfe canon, and for good reason.

Wolfe has been talked into opening the Brownstone to a flower club. At the event, a woman takes Archie aside to confide him that she recognized a murderer at the party, but she’ll only confide it to Wolfe. It goes without saying that before Archie can get Wolfe back to the office, the woman is killed in Wolfe’s office.

This is not only unfortunate, but very inconvenient for Wolfe as Inspector Cramer peevishly orders the office sealed and Wolfe just as peevishly refuses to divulge a key observation to Cramer. He uses Wolfe’s dining room to interrogate the witnesses and Wolfe orders Fritz to make sandwiches for everyone but the police. The novella is far more subtle than the Television version for A&E, as it quietly shows the tension between Wolfe and the official police.

The story than features one of the most memorable climaxes in the Wolfe canon with Archie facing more physical danger than ever and a truly surprising solution. I’ve not read all the Wolfe novellas yet, but this one was the best so far. It makes the whole collection well worth reading.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

Overall Rating: very satisfactory

You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.

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Book Review, Golden Age Article, Sherlock Holmes

Book Review: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

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Continuing on the success of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs offers up some more fantastic classic mysteries but also a few signs of Doyle burning out on the Holmes series.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is available for free download on Amazon and other sites.

The American version of the Memoirs includes eleven stories:

“Silver Blaze”
“The Adventure of the Yellow Face”
“The Adventure of the Stockbroker’s Clerk”
“The Adventure of the Gloria Scott”
“The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual”
“The Adventure of the Reigate Squire”
“The Adventure of the Crooked Man”
“The Adventure of the Resident Patient”
“The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter”
“The Adventure of the Naval Treaty”
“The Final Problem”

On the positive side there’s “The Silver Blaze” which was one of G.K. Chesterton’s favorite Holmes stories which is perfectly constructed.  “The Reigate Squire” shows Holmes at his craftiest as he has to solve the murder of a country while ailing. The “Resident Patient” allowed Holmes to show his cleverness even if a freak storm was called in to actually take care of justice. “The Navel Treaty” is the longest story in the collection and a completely satisfying story as we’re presented with a fascinating whodunit and a startling conclusion. “The Crooked Man” is a classic case of a false charge brought about by confusion and reminded me a little bit of “The Sign of Four.”

On the down side, I had to admit some disappointment with the end to “The Greek Interpreter.” Of course, this may have been because I saw the Grenada TV version first which “fixed” the ending. The “Yellow Face” was a somewhat slow story that’s been rarely adapted.

Beyond that, there s also a sense that Doyle was beginning to tire of the character.  “The Stockbroker’s Clerk” would have been a fine story had it not been a basic rehashing of “The Red Headed League.” Two stories were told to Watson by Holmes entirely without any actual action occurring in both “The Gloria Scott” and “The Musgrave Ritual.” While both stories were good, I missed Watson in them.

Of course, the styling of these entries with fits with the title and it brought home to me one of the appeals of Sherlock Holmes.  The story was not written in traditional fiction style but as Memoirs of Doctor Watson. It’s a point that can be missed because this device has been used so many times since and often not very well, but Watson’s writings sounded so true to life that we really don’t treat Holmes as a fictional character at all, if you see the way Holmes is quoted, it is rarely quoted as coming from a novel. No wonder that 58% of Britons believe Sherlock Holmes was a real historical character.

That brings us to “The Final Problem” a story that has never adapted well to other media without serious tweaks.  Even Grenada Television’s version looked absolutely silly when Holmes and Moriarty fought over the falls. A production may borrow from parts of Final Problem particularly as it relates to Moriarty, but the plot itself has serious problems not the least of which is the difficulty of making the fight look convincing.

Holmes flees London and then across the Continent to get away from Moriarty. The story rubs me as  simply wrong as you have a detective fleeing a criminal. While Holmes’ justification for the chase the first three days was to avoid messing up the prosecution of Moriarty’s gang. After the gang was apprehended and Holmes remained free, continuing to run from Moriarty into the heart of Switzerland was unnecessary.

Of course, this was Doyle’s attempt to free himself from demands for more Holmes’ stories by killing the character off.  What surprised me was that Doyle manages a remarkably poignant ending to the story with Watson, in effect, eulogizing Holmes,  and bringing out aspects of his character that are often overlooked. It was actually quite beautiful writing with which Watson bid farewell to his dear friend.

Overall, while it’s not quite as good as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Memoirs holds its own as a great classic short story collection.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0

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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Hand in the Glove

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Hand in the Glove features Dol Bonner, a young woman who has started her detective agency with the financial help of wealthy heiress Sylvia Raffray, who is on the cusp of taking over her family fortune. Her Guardian, P.L. Storrs, objects to Sylvia’s involvement in the detective business as it’s created some bad publicity. He persuades Sylvia to agree to quit the agency and her professional association with Dol which will essentially put Dol into a far less plush and favorable position. 

However, Dol gets her first solo job when P.L. hires her to rid his family of a cult leader who is draining his wife financially. She heads to P.L.’s home in Connecticut with this goal, but everything changes when she finds P.L. strangled and hung up by a wire. Dol sets out to solve the murder of her friend’s ward and prove herself as a detective.

Nero Wolfe doesn’t appear in this story, but Inspector Cramer does make a cameo.

Bonner actually shares one key feature with Nero Wolfe: a contempt for the opposite sex, though her’s is not so severe as to prevent her from having men work for her or from being a caring sister. She also has a verbal feature in common with Wolfe: how she tells subordinates to take notes. When I read her saying to a male detective, “Your notebook…” I got deja vu. I wonder if this was intentional or if Stout couldn’t think any other way a detective might tell someone to take notes.

In other ways, they are mirror images. Wolfe an experienced late middle aged man and Bonner a young pretty woman feeling her way in the art of detection. While Wolfe remains reticent about his past and we only get tiny glimpses throughout the Corpus, Bonner tells straight up her backstory and why she thinks so little of men: she was jilted by one.

Bonner’s efforts to solve the case are met with sarcasm, annoyance, and amusement. A police officer smirks when he sees Bonner getting her detection kit out of the car and Sylvia tells her to put it away.  Even Bonner’s not so sure of herself.   She  puts forth a strong front of absolute confidence, but she’s riddled with self-doubt. Is she really a detective or is she “just playing.” Thus Bonner mission is to prove herself to herself.

The story is weakened by a forgettable cast of 1930s stereotypes, the occult huckster,  the heavy-drinking newsman, the dutiful butler, and the aloof bohemian poet daughter. Only the psychologist who is in need of a psychologist provides any spark and not enough of that.  Sylvia Raffray fills the part of  spoiled rich kid and is completely useless to Dol. While everyone seems to like her, it’s a mystery to me why they do.

Even with a stronger cast of supporting characters, it’s doubtful Bonner would have ever made it in a series. Her disrespect for men was unlike to make her popular with men or women. Plus, her uncertainty in the face of challenge is unlikely to connect with modern women in the age of girl power. Hand in the Glove is a serviceable 1930s mystery. What sets it apart from other 1930s mystery that are gathering dust in libraries across America is that it was written by one of America’s most talented mystery writers and featured a character who  would go on to appear as a supporting character in one of the the greatest detective series ever.

I should also note that a TV adaptation of Hand in the Glove was produced by NBC in 1992 called Lady Against the Odds that featured Crystal Bernard (Wings) as Dol Bonner and is available on Netflix. The TV movie made a number of departures. The time period was changed to World War II (which is far more exciting to most viewers than 1937),  rather than having the case confined to the estate as the book does, Dol travel back and forth questioning witnesses. It also changed the character of Dol Bonner and removed the man-hating elements. While there was a bit of melodrama and some things that didn’t ring true to the period, after reading the book, I think they probably did the best they could with it.

Rating: 2.75 out of 5.0.

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Book Review: Please Pass the Guilt

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Reading Please Pass the Guilt right after The Silent Speaker provided quite an interesting contrast. Both cases involve Archie and Wolfe drumming up business, but the times have changed in 25 years.

In the first place, technoligically things are quite different. In, The Silent Speaker, recording cylinders were a cumbersome  yet important part of the case that Wolfe and Archie didn’t really understand. By the time of Please Pass the Guilt, Wolfe and Archie are recording nearly every conversation to occur in the office. (Them and Richard Nixon both.)

Perhaps, more striking is the cultural change. Archie has to compete with a television when trying to pitch the widow of a murder victim on hiring Wolfe. Wolfe for his part remains the same iconoclastic figures as always. When asked if he watches television, Wolfe responds curtly, “I turn on the television rarely, only to confirm my opinion of it.”

Stout was clear that Nero and Archie had not changed in their basic temperment and behavior in the past thirty-eight years of the series while the world around them has transformed and that tension manifests itself. Stout even brushes with the more modern times and approaches (but back away from) edgier profanity when a women’s libber obsessed with the supposed sexism of language asked. “What is one of men’s favorite four-letter colloquial words that begins with f?” Archie demurred, claiming not to know what she was getting at. Acceptance of the use of that language may have been growing in the late 1960s and early 1970s but not in Rex Stout novels.

In a key moment, Archie expressed exasperation when unable to convince a female suspect go on a date as is his usual practice. Archie declared, “I’m done. Washed up. I’ve lost my touch, I’m a has-been. You knew me when.”

Fritz provides a rare moment of sagacity. “Then she is washed up, not you. You are looking at the wrong side. Just turn it over, that’s all you ever have to do, just turn it over” Perhaps, this served as a metaphor for the book and for Nero Wolfe and Archie’s place in a rapidly changing world. If 1970s American readers reached the point where they could no longer appreciate these characters, then readers were washed up, not them.

As one reviewer pointed out on Amazon, this is as much a period piece as the Wolfe stories from the 1940s. For most of Wolfe’s long-time fans, it’s just not a period they like as well. The case begins when Doc Volmer asks Wolfe to do a favor for a friend of his. A young man has shown up at a local psychological clinic and states he has blood on his hands, but he won’t even give his right name. He suggests Wolfe apply his skills to the problem to help unearth the truth. When the young man shows up, the most Wolfe is able to do is to connive to find out his real name. Wolfe discovers he’s one of the figures in the murder of an executive who went into another executive’s room and opened a drawer he kept whiskey in.

With the bank balance low and Wolfe having worked even less than usual the first five months of 1969, Archie goes on his own initiative to the widow of the executive to lobby her to hire Wolfe. She does so and answers a key question: What was her husband doing in another executive’s private office? Simple, he was spiking his whiskey with LSD so his would blow his interview with the board to become the next president of the company. Welcome to the 1960s, man.

From there, Wolfe embarks on an investigation to find the truth. Along the way, he runs into a steady stream of lies: from employees of the firm, complete strangers who respond to an ad for information, and even from his client. Wolfe has never treated a client with such contempt as he does in Please Pass the Guilt. However, the contempt was well-earned. What’s perhaps most astounding is that a truth embedded in one of the lies Wolfe’s told leads him to the true solution of the case.

So, while it’s not vintage 1940s Wolfe, Please Pass the Guilt shows the timeless power of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.

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Book Review: The Silent Speaker

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I hadn’t planned on getting into Nero Wolfe novels that had been adapted to TV until after finishing the novels that weren’t adapted (except for A Family Affair) and the novella collections. However, the Silent Speaker was included in the library edition of Black Orchids, so I thought to go ahead and enjoy the bonus.

The Silent Speaker starts is set in the aftermath of the World War II. The head of the federal Bureau of Price Regulation was bludgeoned to death just before he was scheduled to address the National Industrial Association, a group that bore him ill-will. Suspicion falls upon the NIA as culprits.

 

With Wolfe’s banking balance suffering, Archie undertakes “Operation Payroll” to ensure that all of Wolfe’s employees (including him) get paid, Archie cleverly horns in on the case after clearing it with Inspector Cramer and the FBI, neither of which are getting anywhere. So Wolfe is hired by the NIA to solve the case, which centers on a case of missing Dictaphone cylinders.

Wolfe is able to interview all the principle players in the case in a group interview, except for the dead man’s secretary: a beautiful and extremely intelligent woman.  After Wolfe interviews her individually, he issues an unusual injunction to Archie. Archie’s not to see the woman unless Wolfe order him to. Wolfe warns, “A woman who is not a fool is dangerous.” Someone else agrees as she becomes the murderer’s second victim when she’s found dead outside the second gathering of the witnesses and suspects.

The case is fantastically written with plenty of red herrings. It all comes down to a search for ten transcription cylinders that disappeared on the night of the murder and finally just one. And Wolfe and Archie are initially duped by a very clever ruse.

 

This book is notable for many reasons. Wolfe’s relationship with his client has rarely been more complicated, and his relations with Inspector Cramer have never been friendlier. When Cramer is relieved of command, Wolfe has to not only solve the case but to solve in it such a way as to restore Cramer and avoid having Cramer’s pig-headed replacement permanently in charge of Homicide. This leads Wolfe to take some of the most extreme measures of his career to avoid police harassment. And before it’s all over, Archie provides a revelation of its own. All in all, The Silent Speaker is one book that far exceeds the TV version.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.

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Book Review: Black Orchids

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Nero Wolfe had twice as many novels published as Sherlock before he ever broke into short fiction. However, author Rex Stout would create some of his most memorable stories in the Wolfe novellas. The first two of these are collected in Black Orchids.

Black Orchids

The title story for the collection was originally published as Death Wears an Orchid. Archie has found himself assigned to flower show duty to watch a new Black Orchid bred by Lewis Hewitt to see whether it wilts or not. Wolfe finally makes a trip down in person to see it. But then fate takes a hand when Archie triggers the murder when he picks up a stick, triggering a Rube Goldberg style murder, which is the least practical part of the story.

The stick that served as the trigger belonged to Hewitt. Wolfe offers to solve the case and protect Hewitt in exchange for all three of the black orchid plants, insisting on them in advance.

To hold on to his plants, Wolfe has to not only sift through blackmail and jealousies of orchid growers, but he has to endure not one, but two women living under his roof, all while keeping his client’s name out of the press. Wolfe has a clever and somewhat shocking way of doing this that makes for a great twist ending.

Rating: Satisfactory

Cordially Invited to Meet Death

New York’s Premier party planner, Beth Huddleston, engages Wolfe to stop malicious letters that are threatening to ruin her business.  Wolfe has her entire household under suspicion and sends Archie out to investigate. Archie finds a virtual mad house with a Chimp that blocks his way in unless he plays tag with him as well as bears roaming around. Their investigation is cut short when Huddleston dies of a tetanus infection with Wolfe only having learned one key thing: the secret to preparing great Corned Beef hash which Wolfe achieved through a precedent-breaking decision to  allow a woman suspect into the kitchen to help him.

However, her brother is convinced its murder. When Archie and the brother both get the same idea and proof is found that the death was no accident, Wolfe has little reason to be engaged as he has no client. However, when Cramer insults Wolfe by taking a dinner guest downtown for questioning, Wolfe not only resolves to solve the case. He plans to rub Cramer’s face in it.

Within the story, Archie offers a mystery as to why Wolfe sent some of the rare black orchids to Huddleston’s funeral and never answers the question. The question is left open though Archie offers readers their choice of potential theories. Archie confesses there may even have been some past association between Wolfe and Beth Huddleston, but that much of Wolfe’s past remains a mystery to him.  And the puzzle of the black orchids only adds to Wolfe’s mystery.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

Collection Rating: Very Satisfactory

You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.

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Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes continues to be incredibly popular to this day. It’s near the top of the free download list on Kindle. The Librivox Audiobook version has been downloaded 1 million times on Archive.org.

The book remains the most popular literature featuring the great detective beating all the novels and other collections handily. It contains 12 classic stories:

1. A Scandal in Bohemia
2. The Red-Headed League
3. A Case of Identity
4. The Boscombe Valley Mystery
5. The Five Orange Pips
6. The Man with the Twisted Lip
7. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
8. The Adventure of the Speckled Band
9. The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb
10. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
11. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
12. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Other than the unsatisfactory ending to, “A Case of Identity” each story is a true gem. They all have this wonderful mix of exciting action, clear-headed deduction, with sensational situations occurring frequently.

If you’ve never read the collection and you’ve only seen or heard adaptations of the story, perhaps the greatest benefit to be derived from reading the book is that most adaptations take stories from all the collections. What you get when you read these stories in the order they were published is how fresh and exciting the Holmes story and character was. There had never been anything quite like it and its clear in this collection that Doyle was still enjoying the character. The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes represents Holmes and Doyle at their prime. I found myself imagining what it might be like to pick up a copy of the book or be reading the original stories in the magazine if you’d never read a detective story before or if all you’d was Edgar Allen Poe’s C Auguste Dupin. How exciting it must have been for the first readers to encounter Sherlock Holmes.

Of course, even 120 years after the collection was published in 1892, Doyle’s masterwork stands well against any modern competitor in fascinating its readers.

Rating: 5.0 out of 5.0 Stars.

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Book Review: The Black Mountain

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Having firmly established the rules of Nero Wolfe’s first few books, Rex Stout felt free to force Wolfe to bend or break some of his rules.  Other than In the Best Families, Stout never forced Wolfe to break so many rules as he did in The Black Mountain.

Wolfe’s lifelong friend Marco Vukcic is killed and Wolfe leaves the Brownstone in a cab to pay a visit the crime scene and goes to question witnesses. Then, tracing Marco’s murder to his support of Montenegrin rebels opposing the Yugoslav Government under Tito, he and Archie  fly to Italy and cross the Adriatic an old boat and begin a hike to the place o f Wolfe’s birth under assumed names with no passports. Archie doesn’t speak any of the languages, so he has to rely on Wolfe’s translations to even let us know what is being said.

This is definitely not the typical Nero Wolfe story, which is what some people don’t like about it. However, I thought this story worked very well. It was thought provoking in many ways, not the least of which was how much of Wolfe’s eccentricity was put on as he abandons many of them in order to complete this mission to track down Vukcic’s killer. We also have a few hints of what Wolfe’s life was like before he departed for America.  Stout as he does in countless novels, breathes life into his setting.

Stout’s Yugoslavia is a Cold War backwater where you don’t know quite who to trust and the oppression of the Communists has cowed the Montenegrin people, a fact that clearly pains Wolfe.  The story is filled with intrigue and espionage on multiple levels.

The story does lack the same level of influence for Archie. There’s no girl for Archie to chase  as he can’t understand one word of the languages, thwarting any romantic inquiries.  Archie also gets little chance to mouth off to authority except in the first few chapters which are set in New York.

However, this is one novel where the spotlight is rightly on Nero Wolfe, who shines. The story encounters Wolfe dealing with his most personal loss. Wolfe, ever the master of words, uses action instead to show his feelings about Marco as he travels half way around the world to bring Marco’s killer to justice. Of course, words come in handy when, in the face of the lawlessness dominating his homeland, he decides to get killer back to the United States trial without extradition. To achieve this, he has to create one of his most elaborate and risky rouses he’s ever undertaken. And even then, the action doesn’t let up until the final page.

Overall, one of the best I’ve read yet.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.

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