I read this book for the Back
to the Classics Challenge 2016.
Over My Dead Body
– Rex Stout
Published in 1939 after being serialized in The American Magazine, this is the
seventh mystery that starred rotund PI Nero Wolfe and his more active assistant
and sidekick Archie Goodwin. Wolfe has enough eccentricities for three people:
indolent, orchid-fancying, woman-hater in the old-fashioned way, agoraphobic, and most shocking of all, a voracious reader. But he is as
brilliant as Sherlock Holmes. Archie is the archetypal American: athletic, brash,
wise-cracking, and a hit with the fair sex.
Nero Wolfe confronts consequences of his own decisions
made in the last days of the troubled Hapsburg empire and its seething possessions
in Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro. That is, he adopted a baby girl, left her
with people he trusted, but lost touch with her when they were killed for their
revolutionary sympathies by the secret police.
The situation gives Archie a chance to tease Wolfe:
"I'm resigning as of this
moment."
"Resigning from what?"
"You. My job."
"Rubbish."
"No, boss, really. You told
the G-man you have never married. Yet you have a daughter. Well," I
shrugged. "I'm not a prude, but there are limits —"
The daughter does not necessarily want contact with the
famous PI in Manhattan, but a spot of trouble brings her to
Wolfe’s brownstone seeking help. Later two murders occur. They revolve around a
fencing school where the daughter, her friend Carla, and the dodgy Miss Vorka
work.
This mystery has the right amount of plot and character.
Stout includes a number of scenes full of high-jinks. The reveal is logical and
plausible. Unlike the other novels, Manhattan itself does not play a major role,
but this is a quibble. Storm clouds of war hang over the novel, reminding us that
writers are canaries in the coal mine.
My reviews of other classic Wolfe mysteries:
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