The League of Frightened Men

Rating:
Summary: Wolfe saves a murdered who didn't murder anyone
Review: A bit longer than most of Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries, but still well worth the read. This is also one of the earliest Nero Wolfe books so there are a few differences between it and later stories, which made it even more interesting.
A good read, a great story line, and great value for the money compared to the $9 or $10 for a 90 minute movie, not including the 20 bucks for popcorn and soft drink.

Rating:
Summary: Wolfe saves a murdered who didn't murder anyone
Review: A bit longer than most of Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries, but still well worth the read. This is also one of the earliest Nero Wolfe books so there are a few differences between it and later stories, which made it even more interesting.
A good read, a great story line, and great value for the money compared to the $9 or $10 for a 90 minute movie, not including the 20 bucks for popcorn and soft drink.

Rating:
Summary: Rubinek puts you in the middle of the action
Review: A group of men are haunted by a past misdeed. When thier group starts to die off in mysterious ways they think they know who dunnit and they want him stopped. They petition Nero Wolfe to save the day. Before it's all over, a woman gets the best of Archie. Honest!

Rating:
Summary: The League of Atonement versus the Literary Avenger
Review: A hazing accident at a Harvard dormitory leaves a young man hopelessly crippled. The 35 men responsible for the injury form a League of Atonement to help support their victim. Eventually the victim discovers he has great literary ability and becomes a lionized author. All his books have as their theme the murder of various characters modeled after various members of the League of Atonement. The victim has become a Literary Avenger. Then one member dies violently at a reunion while in close proximity to the Literary Avenger. The survivors receive an anonymous poem suggesting the Literary Avenger has become a literal avenger. Another dies of poisoning shortly after a meeting with the Avenger. Another group of poems goes out. A third disappears without a trace. Another anonymous poem goes out to the League. They have transmogrified from the League of Atonement to the League of Frightened Men.

They consult with Nero Wolfe, and he undertakes to relieve their fears for an obscene fee. Wolfe feels that all he needs is the answers to three questions and he can corkscrew a confession out of the Literary Avenger. Before Wolfe can pull it off, his target gets himself arrested for the murder of a fourth member of the League, and it looks like an open and shut case. Wolfe stands to lose his fee. If the Avenger gets electrocuted for the fourth murder, the League won't owe him a cent.

Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's confidential assistant, sees the problem quite simply. All Wolfe has to do is exonerate the Literary Avenger in the fourth murder and get confessions to the first three. The pair of detectives travels a complex path to achieve Archie's simple solution. Archie gets poisoned, Wolfe gets kidnapped, and it all culminates in one of the most Machiavellian maneuvers ever to spring from Wolfe's fertile imagination.

Rating:
Summary: The League of Atonement versus the Literary Avenger
Review: A hazing accident at a Harvard dormitory leaves a young man hopelessly crippled. The 35 men responsible for the injury form a League of Atonement to help support their victim. Eventually the victim discovers he has great literary ability and becomes a lionized author. All his books have as their theme the murder of various characters modeled after various members of the League of Atonement. The victim has become a Literary Avenger. Then one member dies violently at a reunion while in close proximity to the Literary Avenger. The survivors receive an anonymous poem suggesting the Literary Avenger has become a literal avenger. Another dies of poisoning shortly after a meeting with the Avenger. Another group of poems goes out. A third disappears without a trace. Another anonymous poem goes out to the League. They have transmogrified from the League of Atonement to the League of Frightened Men.

They consult with Nero Wolfe, and he undertakes to relieve their fears for an obscene fee. Wolfe feels that all he needs is the answers to three questions and he can corkscrew a confession out of the Literary Avenger. Before Wolfe can pull it off, his target gets himself arrested for the murder of a fourth member of the League, and it looks like an open and shut case. Wolfe stands to lose his fee. If the Avenger gets electrocuted for the fourth murder, the League won't owe him a cent.

Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's confidential assistant, sees the problem quite simply. All Wolfe has to do is exonerate the Literary Avenger in the fourth murder and get confessions to the first three. The pair of detectives travels a complex path to achieve Archie's simple solution. Archie gets poisoned, Wolfe gets kidnapped, and it all culminates in one of the most Machiavellian maneuvers ever to spring from Wolfe's fertile imagination.

Rating:
Summary: Top Form
Review: I really loved this book even before I read "Stout Fellow" by "O.E.McBride." Her insightful analysis of all of Rex Stout's work confirms what I already suspected: Rex Stout's earliest books were his best.

This one can be forgiven some narrative excesses (the pink tie and soup, for example) in fair exchange for some of Wolfe's best Wolfeisms. The one about membership in the Hardvard Club is in this book.

And finally, Paul Chapin is a much better "Moriarty" than Arnold Zeck. He's much deeper and more complex, in fact, than virtually any other of Stout's other characters, doubly subtle by the way in which his villainy is propounded.

Fetishism, kinky stuff - all here more so that in anything else of Wolfe's that comes to mind. And it is expertly read in audio.

Rating:
Summary: Better read over coffee than listened to in a snowstorm
Review: January 8, 2003: Finished listening to this on the way to work today. It ends with a gentle insult that cracked me up. Otherwise, I think I would recommend reading this over listening to this. I think it would go faster, and the conversations would be easier to follow. This particular reader is advertised as having a golden voice; not on my system, he didn't.

A man, Paul, was injured in college. Some number of fellow students felt responsible and guilty enough to undertake some degree of lifetime support (more or less) of him. He was not always fond of this. Some 20 or 30 years later, some of those fellow students begin dying, and later evidence indicates to the remaining that Paul has killed them.

Straightforward (in as much as any of them are) mystery with the twist that you don't know whether the deaths are, in fact, murders--and some may be, some may not be, there may or may not be more, and Paul himself may or may not have been the murderer. I liked that; it presented complications. Some other events (data) laid forth drew me to really basic conclusions ... which were wrong. But appropriately wrong: I had missed something or not been devious enough in my thinking. I had concluded on too little evidence, maybe. I liked that, too.

Rating:
Summary: the best of the lot besides Fer de Lance
Review: Obviously a masterpiece of the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Rubinek is a good choice
Review: Rubinek is an very good choice for Archie, and he does the other characters well too. One of the best of the books in a good performance.

Rating:
Summary: The best Nero Wolfe
Review: This is probably the best of the Nero Wolfe series, along with the Red Box and The Rubber Band. Written before the books got mechanical this one is inventive with sharp funny dialogue.