I read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over
at My
Reader’s Block from January 1 – December 31, 2016. The challenge is to read
books that you already own.
Where There’s a
Will – Rex Stout
Internal evidence - references to the World’s Fair in New
York City and the parlous state of Europe – suggests that this mystery was
written in 1939. Slightly abridged, it was published in in the May, 1940 issue of The American Magazine (1906 – 1956). It was the eighth story
starring eccentric private eye Nero Wolfe and his wise-cracking bodyguard,
secretary, and legman Archie Goodwin.
Since The American
Magazine concentrated on female readership, Stout featured in the story
three strong successful women. The mystery opens in Nero Wolfe’s office where the
celeb Hawthorne sisters – April the stage actress, May the college president,
and June the State Department spouse hostess – want advice on breaking the
bizarre will of their multi-millionaire brother Noel . Clearly they are upset at
being bequeathed, respectively, an apple, a pear, and a peach. But cops burst
in with the unhappy news that the forensic evidence says their brother was
murdered, not killed in a gun-related accident as originally thought.
In contrast to the earlier novels, this outing is shorter
because less exposition makes for a more briskly-paced story. Depending on the reader’s
tolerance for description or the extras we want to see in a Wolfe novel, this
tightness may or may not be a good thing.
I missed the absent or slighted extras. Archie does not
have his usual love interest Lily Rowan around. Wolfe has to leave the brownstone
but Stout doesn’t exploit the fish out of water situation except for a mildly
comic scene when Wolfe is served a lackluster lunch. Wolfe does little
detecting and deducing nor is evidence clearly provided. The femme fatale does
not have much banter in her, especially not with Archie. Homicide Detective Cramer
is overbearing in an unfunny way.
Finally, the amazing Hawthorne sisters – the beautiful
one, the smart one, and the practical one – must be based on actual celeb
sisters of that bygone era. But it drives me crazy that I can’t identify the
original versions since I regard myself as a Thirties buff.
Still and all, I recommend this one to Nero Wolfe fans. Newbies
may want to start with The
Rubber Band or Over My Dead
Body or the great Some
Buried Caesar.
Maybe the Gabor sisters? Zsa Zsa, Eva and Magda?
ReplyDeleteEva Gabor was the first to emigrate to the US, in 1939. The others followed very soon after; their family was Jewish and had to escape Nazified Europe. I don't think they became known to the US public until the 1950s.
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