Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Mount TBR #56

I read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over at My Reader’s Block from January 1 – December 31, 2015. The challenge is to read books that you already own.

Some Buried Caesar – Rex Stout

This mystery is the sixth the Nero Wolfe series, first published in 1939. Like many Golden Age mysteries, it is rather long but it is not too long like the first four are too long (Fer-de-Lance, The League of Frightened Men, The Rubber Band and The Red Box).

The draw of this one is that it is the first appearance of Archie’s love interest Lily Rowan. Also, Nero Wolfe has to leave the brownstone. Archie and Wolfe are taking a road trip to fictitious Crowfield, NY where Wolfe is showing some orchids when they have a car accident. Archie and Wolfe end up in a paddock being chased by a bull.

While the car is being repaired ($66.00, i.e. $1,100 in our 2015 money). He is hosted by the founder, Pratt, of a fast food chain, Pratteria. The vulgarian’s plan is to barbeque a $45,000 ($755K now) prize bull, Hickory Caesar Grindon, as a publicity stunt. His neighbor deplores this plan and then hires Wolfe to find the killer of his son who was found dead, apparently gored by the bull.

As mentioned above, this novel never feels too long except in one place near the end when Archie is jailed by local cops as a material witness (I assume this novel was first serialized in a magazine). The incidents are consistently funny

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