<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: If A&E Starts Up Again...
Review: ...it would be fascinating to see what they would do with this story.
As you read above, it is true that Rex Stout does want to "get on the civil rights bandwagon." He has some basis, though: his "Too Many Cooks" addresses the issue of "race relations" in a manner unusally forthright for its era.
It meant enough to Stout to bring back a character from that story as a protagonist in this one. By the way, that alone strains your "Nero Wolfe Time Warp." The character has aged enough to grow from a teenager to a parent of an adult child, but Nero, Archie and the gang have not changed a bit...
Anyway, the preachment is simple: people are people, regardless of race. You could see this as "traditional liberalism," but the race flavor does add a special quality to the storytelling. It's still a hard one to solve...
Rating: 
Summary: Civil Rights and Private Wrongs
Review: A beautiful young debutante joins the civil rights movement and falls in love with a co-worker. They plan to marry. He is black, she is white. Today this would present no great problem. In 1964, such a marriage was unlawful in many states and unthinkable in most of the others. The young man's father employs Nero Wolfe to "dig up some dirt" on the girl so that he can use it to talk his son out of "ruining his life."While Wolfe plays muckraker the girl gets herself killed and her fiance discovers her body. In the wake of the discovery he manages to act guilty enough to get himself arrested. Despite the incriminating circumstantial evidence, his innocence is obvious to everyone except the police. Wolfe undertakes to find the real killer, and discovers that almost every single member of the civil rights group had motive, means, and opportunity to kill the girl. One of the group even volunteers to confess to the murder to save the young man. Wolfe keeps Archie and Saul Panzer hopping as they run down leads and try to sort through the tangle of evidence, and of course they come out the other side of the maze with a surprising and satisfying solution.
Rating:
Summary: Civil Rights and Private Wrongs
Review: A beautiful young debutante joins the civil rights movement and falls in love with a co-worker. They plan to marry. He is black, she is white. Today this would present no great problem. In 1964, such a marriage was unlawful in many states and unthinkable in most of the others. The young man's father employs Nero Wolfe to "dig up some dirt" on the girl so that he can use it to talk his son out of "ruining his life." While Wolfe plays muckraker the girl gets herself killed and her fiance discovers her body. In the wake of the discovery he manages to act guilty enough to get himself arrested. Despite the incriminating circumstantial evidence, his innocence is obvious to everyone except the police. Wolfe undertakes to find the real killer, and discovers that almost every single member of the civil rights group had motive, means, and opportunity to kill the girl. One of the group even volunteers to confess to the murder to save the young man. Wolfe keeps Archie and Saul Panzer hopping as they run down leads and try to sort through the tangle of evidence, and of course they come out the other side of the maze with a surprising and satisfying solution.
Rating:
Summary: Wolfe on Race
Review: In some ways, this is a very well-written mystery. It holds the reader's interest and the ending is anything but predictable. But, there are some facets that are insultingly unrealistic. Most notably, the great Nero Wolfe can summon all of the potential suspects to his home for interrogation, and they all willingly come! My biggest problem, though, is with Wolfe himself. He is pompous, obtuse, ungreatful, arrogant. I can only marginally enjoy a mystery if I dislike the investigator; that is the case with this book. In fact, knowing now how the Wolfe character is developed, it is highly probable that I will not read any more of the series. But, if you can get past the traits of Wolfe that I describe, I feel confident that you would enjoy this book, and probably all entries in the series. END
Rating: 
Summary: Good story but with revolting protagonist
Review: In some ways, this is a very well-written mystery. It holds the reader's interest and the ending is anything but predictable. But, there are some facets that are insultingly unrealistic. Most notably, the great Nero Wolfe can summon all of the potential suspects to his home for interrogation, and they all willingly come! My biggest problem, though, is with Wolfe himself. He is pompous, obtuse, ungreatful, arrogant. I can only marginally enjoy a mystery if I dislike the investigator; that is the case with this book. In fact, knowing now how the Wolfe character is developed, it is highly probable that I will not read any more of the series. But, if you can get past the traits of Wolfe that I describe, I feel confident that you would enjoy this book, and probably all entries in the series. END
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: One of the better late Nero Wolfe stories. I notice that the other reviewer (thus far) finds Wolfe irritating--of course, he's meant to be that way, which is why we are presented with Archie as Boswell to his ponderous Johnson, perhaps the best solution ever reached to the Dr. Watson problem. What is the Dr. Watson problem? The detective can only seem brilliant if his cards are hidden--but a 1st person narrative is the only way to really involve the reader in the mystery. Thus, the author provides an assistant to the great "Sherlock." The problem is that Dr. Watson figures often seem like idiots--we're unconvinced (in a few stories) that Holmes is a genius because only Watson could have missed the obvious. Archie is competent enough himself that we never doubt for a moment that Wolfe is truly a genius--and the dialogue between Archie and Wolfe is some of the best give-and-take ever written.
Rating:
Summary: A colorful mystery
Review: the plot of this mystery gets us all embroiled in the civil rights issues of that day- but the ending provides an entirely unexpected twist. this is one of the few wolfe mysteries where i suspect the solution to the murder even before archie does. in typical rex stout fashion, everything is the same and nero and archie do not seem to have aged at all. and to those who do not appreciate the surly and overweight genius and his wisecracking, handsome sidekick, i say, "Pfui!"
Rating: 
Summary: I guess he had to get on the civil rights bandwagon...
Review: This book was boring, reading it i got the impression it was an altered storyline to fit hte current civil rights movement of hte time. Wolfe was more annoying than usual and Archie more arrgravatingly natty. Even Fritz's usually neutral character got me down when reading this. If you are new to Nero Wolfe i would recommend starting with a lighter story, like maybe Some Buried Caesar.
Rating:
Summary: Wolfe on Race
Review: This comes from the golden period of Wolfe stories, alongside Too Many Clients, Gambit, The Doorbell Rang etc. The household on 35th Street, with its regular outriders, is fully developed and faces the brave new world (in this case, our topical theme is civil rights) with wit and equanimity. A typical Wolfe solution of this period, spotting the odd little fact no-one else considers. Strong plot.
Rating:
Summary: Stout on civil rights
Review: Written during the height of the Civil Rights movement, it shows that even the classics are sometimes a part of their times. Stout usually transcends time and place by the exacting nature of his plotting and the smooth flow of his prose. He, however, wasn't content to rest on his laurels alone (although had he done so there would have been no recriminations); Stout wasn't afraid to take on the subjects of the day, from McCarthy in the 50s to the racial biogotry displayed here. Stout realized that people were not buying a Nero Wolfe book to get a treatise on civil rights, however, and the point that he makes about it is integral to the story but is not the story itself. I think that's the difference between good fiction and didacticism. So many authors lose sight of the ultimate purpose of fiction on their way to the altar of moral rectitude. Science fiction is particularly guilty of this sin--poorly conceiled political agendas under ill-drawn alien or future societies. And the stuff that gets published is nothing compared to what you might read in a workshop. I can write this because I am guilty of this particular problem, both in stories that have seen print and ones currently in slush piles across the world. It's a beginner's mistake that even hardended professionals find hard to shake. The pressure to make art is always with us; realizing that art is something that can't be forced, that must come naturally, is never easy. Sometimes it is just best to relax and view how the masters like Stout approached the same chasm, and note how they were able to bridge it.
<< 1 >>
|
