Mount TBR #59

I read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over at My Reader’s Block from January 1 – December 31, 2017. The challenge is to read books that you already own.

The Sound of Murder – Rex Stout

This book was first published in 1941 as Alphabet Hicks, named after the PI hero that Stout invented for the sake of a break from writing his popular Nero Wolfe mysteries. Internal evidence indicates that, like Donald Lam, Hicks is an ex-lawyer. Being disbarred because he chose to take a courageous ethical stand has given him a jaundiced view of the criminal justice establishment and the taxpayers who let said authorities get away with unjust shenanigans.

Hicks becomes a PI and cab driver to put bread on the table of the apartment he rents over a small and undiscovered Italian restaurant. One night a society matron recognizes him and asks for his help with her husband who has accused her of forking over his company secrets to a rival plastics manufacturer. Hicks needs a new suit so he takes her $200 ($3,300 in 2017) and embarks on fast-paced case with a couple murders, a country estate, two lovebirds, and high tech dictating machines that make vinyl records.

The characterization has the variety of types that we find in the better whodunnits of yesteryear. Most eccentric of all is Hicks who has become famous for his business cards. People ask him for one just to get a souvenir. His cards include only his name and a string of letters. People invariable ask him what M.S.O.T.P.B.O.M. means. So he has to reply, Melancholy Spectator of the Psychic Bellyache of Mankind. Quite a knee-slapper for certain kind of sesquipedalian reader that finds herself reading obscure mysteries by well-known writers.

A caution to those looking for a Nero Wolfe-like romp: The Sound of Murder has a brisk pace and lightness of tone that are winning but it is only as pleasant to read as a so-so Nero-Archie novel. In the mediocre Nero-Archies, Wolfe is not much of character. Ditto with Alphabet Hicks:  beyond a few quirks and mannerisms, there is not much there. And despite the risible business cards, The Sound of Murder features little witty banter of the kind we get between Wolfe and Archie.