Death of a Dude

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites
Review: A later Nero that holds up very well. For dialogue between Wolfe and Archie it is one of the best and could be the funniest of them all. I have reread it several times and it is always fun.

Rating:
Summary: The huckleberry murder
Review: Despite the title, this story has (slightly) more to do with _The Father Hunt_ than with _Death of a Doxy_; the research compiled by Amy Denovo on Lily Rowan's father is now being turned into a book. One of Archie's fellow guests during his vacation at Lily's ranch in Montana (the Bar JR) is Wade Worthy, the biographer who's working on James Rowan.

However, the dude of the title was Philip Brodell, who had returned to the area after seducing Alma Greve the year before - Brodell was found dead from a shot in the back on a huckleberry-picking expedition. Alma's father Harvey is now in jail, charged with murder, but Lily and Archie are convinced he's innocent, since they've both known him for years (see "The Rodeo Murder" in _Three at Wolfe's Door_). Archie takes an unpaid leave of absence from Wolfe until the case is finished. Wolfe, of course, isn't prepared to have Archie gone for an open-ended length of time, so after pulling a few strings to find out exactly what the case against Harvey is, he appears unannounced at the Bar JR soon after receiving Archie's letter, and he and Archie get to work on the investigation.

It's cool to see Wolfe loosen up a little; as a guest in someone else's domain, he'd be violating his personal standards if he took his eccentricity too far. (Archie, after watching him a little, says it's obvious Wolfe promised himself not to complain about the food no matter what.) Archie, for his part, has made friends over years of vacation visits to Lily out here: to name two, Woody, who runs what he calls the Hall of Culture (the dance hall and cinema pieces of it support him) and can hold his own in dinner conversation with Wolfe, and Carol, the wife of the accused and an ex-rodeo performer herself, who doesn't have a bible in the house to swear on, so she uses a saddle she won at the height of her career.

Some other neat touches include, but are by no means limited to: the guests at the dude ranch where the victim was staying; checking up on the alibi of Brodell's would-be rival for Alma Greve's affections, involving a history teacher, some chickens, and a roofing company; and a hilarious little passage wherein Archie takes time out to discuss censoring one of the wranglers' commentary on Brodell, a deserving victim if ever there was one.