Mount TBR #15

I read this book for the Mount TBR 2018 Reading Challenge.

Murder by the Book – Rex Stout

This 1951 mystery opens with cranky chief of NYPD homicide detectives, Lt. Cramer, semi-sheepishly asking arch-nemesis Nero Wolfe for help identifying names on a list. The rotund PI can’t help until months later when his capacious memory recalls a mere name on that list and ties it to the deaths of a book editor named Joan Wellman and of a paralegal named Leonard Dykes.

Although these two deaths don’t seem connected, they end up previewing another crime by an author using the pen name of Baird Archer. All the readers of the manuscript have been murdered. Wolfe stays put in his brownstone, while he sends his chief assistant Archie Goodwin and the trio of Saul, Orrie, and Fred to various persons of interest for interviews.

This is highly recommended. The plot is clever and convoluted. The interplay between Wolfe and Goodwin is humorous, giving long-time fans much pleasure in meeting old friends once again.