The Doorbell Rang (Nero Wolfe Mysteries (Audio))

Rating:
Summary: Mycroft Holmes and Sam Spade
Review: Nero Wolfe cannot be anything other than a reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes' smarter brother. Wolfe's corpulence, indolence, sagacity, and appreciation for the finer things of life can come only from the model of Mycroft Holmes.

Archie Goodwin's antecedents are a little more complex. He has the energy of Sherlock Holmes, the loyalty of Dr. Watson, and the gritty toughness of Sam Spade.

In this book they do something that was unheard of in 1965 when the book was written--they take on the FBI. Their client is being stalked by agents of the FBI, and they must stop it. Incidentally, they have to solve a murder in which the prime suspects are three FBI agents.

They solve the mystery, cage the FBI's dogs, earn their obscene fee, and nobody but the reader lives happily ever after. It is truly entertaining to read how a handful of private citizens humble the mighty, monolithic FBI.

Several incidents in the story made it appear that Wolfe and Goodwin had a cavalier attitude towards investigative ethics. In one scene Wolfe talks to Goodwin about the murder case. The two decide that it would be best to prove the FBI Agents didn't commit the murder. They then decide that's what they'll do. This is not the way to investigate a murder case. The objective of a murder investigation should never be to prove that someone did or didn't commit a murder. The objective of the investigation should be to determine who committed the murder. You might think that I'm splitting hairs, but I am not. When one sets out to prove that someone committed a murder, he can develop tunnel vision and ignore significant clues that point in other directions. Only after the murder is conclusively identified should the mission shift to proving he did it.

This was my first Nero Wolfe novel. It was good enough to warrant reading further novels.

Rating:
Summary: Looking tough at the FBI
Review: Oftentimes the Nero Wolfe books are in some never-never time. You know it's sometime after the second World War, but placing it in the fifties or sixties or seventies can be tough. Except when Stout decides to take on what later became one of his favorite subjects, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In The Doorbell Rang, Stout gets his jabs in at the "privileged" position of the federal investigator, while raising issues many Americans had at the time about a "secret police" which reported, supposedly, only to the president. A true immigrant, Wolfe has more of a feeling for what democracy is and how precious an item it is, and works harder to defend it than the "real" Americans. As always, Stout's prose is clean and crisp, and this is the same book that you expect from him.

Rating:
Summary: Can't think of a better detective than Nero Wolfe
Review: Rex Stout came up with a winner in Nero Wolfe. Archie and Nero combine for some of the best mystery/suspense reading possible. This book involves Wolfe with the most dangerous guys possible, the FBI. How he gets himself into and out of this mess is great to read. The book is full of excellent characters and no one can write a suspense story like Rex Stout.