The Broken Vase
- Rex Stout
It is early 1941 in New York City. Gentleman farmer and
private eye Tecumseh Fox is rich enough to afford giving a grant of $2,000.00
(about $35,000 in our 2019 dinero) to a young gifted fiddler to purchase a
Stradivarius. Though not a music lover, Fox attends the Carnegie Hall concert
for the premier performance of the fiddler on his prize violin. Unmusical Fox
notices that the audience is shocked and leaving in droves. Fox is told that
the violin’s tone didn’t sound at all right. The young violinist, in front of
witnesses, takes his own life during the intermission.
Case closed, but a killing occurs that makes Fox think
the suicide and the murder are linked. The rich mother of the murder victim
hires Fox to investigate the circumstances and find out who committed a murder.
Fox has a series of interviews and adventures that make for amusing reading,
especially when one’s brain is too tired for hard reading matter.
Rex Stout is better known and more respected for his
novels starring Nero Wolfe, rotund orchid fancier and PI to the rich and
famous. Critics and fans agree that his other detective creations – Tec Fox,
Alphabet
Hicks, and Theodolinda
‘Dol’ Banner – are not up to the Wolfe-Archie stories, especially the novellas.
But I don’t care. As a fan of between the wars whodunnits,
I like the vintage characters, society settings, and squads of suspects. To his
credit, Stout always plays fair with the reader, giving enough information to
the reader to figure it out by the reveal. Also, like Conan Doyle was able to in
the Holmes stories, Stout captures an insular world timelessness – affluent Manhattan, mid-20th
century – a quality that I hope discerning readers will enjoy for years to come.
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