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Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:The aging millionairess has a problem: where is her young playboy husband getting all his money? To help find the answer, Archie infiltrates a party at her palatial estate. But her late-night murder ruins the festive mood . . . and a letter bomb from a powerful crime boss makes Nero Wolfe do the unthinkable�??run for his life. Suddenly Archie finds himself on his own, trying to find a killer without the help of his old mentor. For to all appearances, Wolfe has vanished. The career of the world�??s most famous detective has ended in cowardice and disgrace . . . or has it? Introduction by Patricia Sprinkle �??It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore.�?��??The New York Times Book Review A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America�??s greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained�??and puzzled�??millions of mystery fans around the world. Now, with his perambulatory man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable ma… (more)
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In general, I find that the Nero Wolfe books all run together. I don't remember plots or characters from one time to the next. I have half a dozen or so that I keep on hand for just that reason - I find they are the perfect read when I need something to read.
The exception to this is Archie Goodwin. I love Archie. In a perfect world, I would marry Archie. Or maybe just date him for years, I haven't decided. But he is always number one on my list of "Fictional Characters You Love."
Oh, I added dogs to the tags just because there are dogs, and Nero gives a wonderful speech about their loyalty and love, and that turns out to be the key to the mystery.
This novel takes a turn that is quite unexpected—even though it has been foreshadowed in previous books. I think it is one of the best in the series. Besides Wolfe and Archie the only other regular character that has a big role in the story is Lily Rowen. If you catch the clue that gives the solution to the murder as I did, don’t forget about it as the story unfolds because there is a lot going on in this story and Stout is a master at diverting your attention. This is number 16 in the series and one of the strongest, IMO. Highly recommended for fans
Warnings: many spoilers to follow.
On the purely “I figured things out before Wolfe/Goodwin revealed it” front I nailed Leeds as at least involved with
On the second front, the believability of Wolfe worming his way into the world of Zeck I was completely unwilling to swallow the idea. The number of reasons why this was unlikely are many: Wolfe was a very overweight man and Roeder a man who had extraneous flesh hanging from his face, surely any criminal mastermind would have found that interesting if not suspicious; Zeck would have done background checks on anyone who rose to the level of a “D”and Roeder had no existence prior do the disappearance of Wolfe, again setting off warning bells; after several speeches from Wolfe about the degree to which a series of cut-outs meant that Zeck could not be connected to any actual crimes Zeck is rather forthcoming about his involvement in crimes to someone as low as a “B” (Goodwin); Wolfe, he tells us, got the attention of Zeck by inventing a new way of fleecing people and yet there is no discussion after Zeck is killed of whether those people are recompensed or indeed whether Goodwin or Wolfe feel the need for that; Zeck’s fortress of solitude was easily breached and his entire criminal enterprise collapses on the death of its leader without any explanation of how that would happen; and finally there is no discussion of the fact that even if Zeck is dead there are many underworld (and even overworld) people who would welcome the death of Wolfe for bringing down the Zeck empire and possibly exposing dangerous information to the world.
I was cheering for this book but found it stretched my credulity to the limit. If Lily Rowan was able to figure out that Roeder was Wolfe then so should have Saul at least and perhaps Fred and Orrie. If the Roeder gambit had been played out over a longer period of time, let us say 2 or 3 years, it might have been more believable but as it was it was a very mundane working out to what had been a great setup.
Other comments: while it was a nice detail to have them use Lily Rowan as “the girl” when they needed a reason for Roeder to be out of contact for several hours it again stretches credulity that Zeck wouldn’t have run a background check on her. Rown, we are told in many books, is a well known heiress and frequenter of the New York social scene. This would bring up a problem because her background would indicate that she didn’t spend nights with anonymous crminals and even more problematic would be her long term relationship with Goodwin. Since Archie had to cancel a planned trip to Norway with Rowan in order to fall in with Roeder’s plans it seems unlikely that the evening with Roeder would not have raised suspicion. It could have been handled by having Archie openly drop Roeder off with the suggestion that Roeder had dirt on Rowman and she was paying it off in favours than in the manner it is presented.
On the plus side, Stout’s writing seems to have returned to its prewar level. I forgive him the rather idiot murder plot since it had to be something trivially easy to work out else Wolfe would not have been able to unravel it by long distance and without investigations.
Nobody will believe that Archie doesn't know where Wolfe is even when Archie goes into business for himself with his own office and some classy business cards.
Lily Rowan does a cameo appearance, as pretty as ever. This isn't the end of the series so Wolfe does reappear with an entertaining if not terribly believable cover story. I really enjoyed the book and the ending is definitely worth the price of admission.
It was nice to see a brief reappearance of Lily Rowan in this book.