Category: Rex Stout

The Last of 2018 - and Looking Ahead from Here

12/31/2018

Do I dare define 2018 in one word? If I were to be so bold, that word would probably be busy. Not chaotic, really, or exhausting – although it was a little of that – but just plain-and-simple busy would work best. It was this year that I moved from multiple adjunct teaching jobs to one full-time, office-hours academic advising job, which meant less grading but far more paperwork and student appointments. And I still teach an online class here and there, which further takes time away from personal projects.

Nevertheless, 2018 proved a very good year for writing, with three stories published (and/or e-published) and available to all. My new tale "The Last Ferry", which I wrote in February, appears in Landfall: The Best New England Crime Stories of 2018 from Level Best Books. And I was delighted to learn that "The Widow Cleans House", my first published short story in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, was chosen for reprint in the anthology Terror at the Crossroads, released in October by Penny Publications/Eris Press.

Also débuting this year was my first long-form effort, and my first LGBTQ romantic comedy to boot. Knights Erring, available from Less Than Three Press, follows three friends who bet each other that they can't uphold the tenets of chivalry (including poverty, chastity, and obedience) for two weeks. The story made it through multiple drafts and grew considerably, and I'm very happy with the current version.

My Reading List – an annual compulsion that I started in 2005 when I decided to note every book, script, or story collection I finished from that point forward – tells me that I read 64 titles this year, which is less than in previous years, but still surprising given the sheer busyness of 2018. (See Paragraph One.) I would note the following items as standouts:

Beartown (2016) – Fredrik Backman's unsentimental exploration of a small northern town that lives - and almost destroys itself - for its high school hockey team
The Moving Target (1949) – Ross MacDonald's first Lew Archer mystery
Exit, Pursued by a Bear (2012) – Lauren Gunderson's darkly comic play about a woman taking revenge on her abusive husband
The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House (2008) by Laton McCartney – why would this story of a corrupt president and a Republican congress trying to hide and bury illegal dealings seem familiar?

Honorable mentions go to Bodies from the Library (2018), a fun collection of lesser-known stories by famous classic mystery authors edited by Tony Medawar, and Gregory McDonald's buoyant sequel Confess, Fletch (1976), which is twistier and more satisfying than his solid earlier effort.

And it was great to return to a book by Gladys Mitchell. I haven't spent much time in her company lately, so I made the excuse to remedy that by launching the Mitchell Mystery Reading Group. I spent a wonderful (and busy) November discussing and dissecting the 1929 Mrs. Bradley whodunit farce The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop. I loved all of the topics and conversational roads that I likely would never have traveled if I had revisited the book on my own, and I am looking forward to the next group reading event, probably in March or April of 2019. I'll choose a 1930s title and announce it the month before; I already have some suggestions from fans, and there are a lot of solid tales to choose from in that decade!

Finally, I will end by offering a version of the familiar New Year's Resolutions. In addition to hosting another Mitchell Mystery Reading Group event (two if I can manage it), 2019 will be the year I finally submit an entry for the Black Orchid Novella writing contest, sponsored by the Rex Stout appreciation club The Wolfe Pack. Before that, I should deliver a completed Act Two (currently in progress) for a stage comedy that I'm writing for a regional theater company. I'd like to also push myself to complete two new crime-themed short stories next year. And I want to keep my eyes open for new writing and contest opportunities, something that I don't always look for as rigorously as I should.

I hope everyone has a 2019 that rivals, nay exceeds, the success and joy that 2018 (hopefully) provided. And if your 2018 was less than you wanted it to be, you have every reason to be optimistic as we flip the calendar and turn the page together!

Peace and best wishes,
Jason Half

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Book Review: ARCHIE MEETS NERO WOLFE (2012) by Robert Goldsborough

2/18/2018

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To date, I have not created a single personal review to represent the Nero Wolfe novels of Rex Stout, despite having read (and reread) most of the series in the past two decades. I enjoy the books greatly, not least because Stout does a masterful job balancing elements of the traditional puzzle mystery story with the American milieu of hard-boiled crime. The corpulent Wolfe and his witty, street-smart chronicler Archie Goodwin are wonderful creations that work together in a sort of bristling harmony. Stout is also an instinctive pacer of plot, and every Wolfe mystery pushes forward organically and assuredly, with hardly a false step or story thread cul-de-sac along the way.

A lack of reviews may be due to the fact that I usually pick up and read these books for sheer entertainment: to enjoy the relationship between the larger-than-life, moody detective and his acerbic assistant; to appreciate how Stout imbues in Wolfe a skill to manipulate and mentally outmaneuver both suspects and law enforcement figures; to see whether the world will pressure Wolfe to cater to it (such as leaving the brownstone to attend a conference or answer a subpoena) or whether the sedentary Wolfe will get the world to come to him (which is usually the case). I enjoy every page of a Rex Stout mystery, but I have never wanted to spoil the effect with literary analysis.

Never having read an entry in Robert Goldsborough's continuation of the series – begun in 1986, with currently a dozen titles available – I thought it was definitely time to try a book. Although the eighth Goldsborough title published, I decided on Archie Meets Nero Wolfe, which shows Goodwin arriving in New York City around 1930 and connecting first with amiable private detective Del Bascom. Archie has to work to prove himself, which he does, finding a husband trying to hide out on the isle of Manhattan. When Del is called in as one of the operatives to assist Nero Wolfe on a kidnapping and ransom case, Archie tags along and enters for the first time that famous brownstone with the orchids on the top floor.

The kidnapped boy is Tommie Williamson, and an encounter with the kidnappers at the rendez-vous finds Tommie safe, but the criminals escape with a vast sum in ransom money. Believing that the kidnapping was in part an inside job, Wolfe persuades hotel magnate Burke Williamson to introduce Archie as the family's new chauffeur to solve two problems: he can keep an eye on Tommie in case anything happens again, and he can use his excellent memory of conversations to report discussions from the house staff. Also, the chauffeur position is available because the prior employee, William Bell, has mysteriously disappeared shortly after the kidnapping had concluded.

By necessity, this "origin story" throws Stout's usual winning formula a bit off-balance. As it is a tale of Archie working as an independent operative before he becomes a factotum for Wolfe, there is more gumshoe gunplay and interaction with hard-boiled types than pursuit of a fair-play puzzle solution. The first-person narrative directive is responsible for this focus, but it works here. When Wolfe is allowed a gathering-of-the-suspects moment in the novel's climax, it is a high point to watch the genre pieces lock into place. It's also enjoyable to see familiar faces like Inspector Cramer, Sergeant Stebbins, Saul Panzer, Orrie Cather, and Fred Durkin in attendance. Goldsborough is respectful to Stout's canon, if not especially inspired to do something more with the well-known characters.

There are a few quibbles with an otherwise enjoyable story. As for the kidnapping mystery, there was never a prime suspect assigned in terms of an accomplice at the house (besides the missing and soon-to-be-found-dead Bell), and clues and evidence were scant. As a result, the middle section where Archie speaks with the staff at the Williamson house feels like a rather desultory fishing expedition. Perhaps it is, but there isn't much forward momentum when what's under discussion isn't particularly notable or urgent.

Also, Wolfe continues to spend his own money to track down the guilty persons and receive closure – Tommie has been returned, after all – and this seems out of character. Saul Panzer tells Archie that Wolfe is taking it personally, but understanding his psychology the way that Stout constructs it, I don't know why he would. In 1938's Too Many Cooks, Wolfe does indeed work without a client and without a fee to catch a murderer, but he has three very Wolfean reasons for doing so: he is stuck in West Virginia and does not believe the inept law officials will arrest the right person, so he hopes to speed matters along; suspicion has fallen on one of his rare true friends, chef Marko Vukcic; and by solving the mystery he might just get the coveted, much-guarded recipe for saucisse minuit in return.

There's also the wrong note of Wolfe telling Goodwin outright in his interview that he needs someone to "spur [him] into action," something Archie does with relish in the Stout books, but a step I always presumed was taken through observation of the detective's inclined inertia, not because Wolfe had the humility to request it as part of the job description. Taken in all, though, Archie Meets Nero Wolfe is an enjoyable, if slight, reading experience. And I appreciate that Goldsborough built this action story from a brief reference to a past case in Stout's very first Nero Wolfe story, 1934's Fer-de-Lance.

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The Last of 2018 - and Looking Ahead from Here

Book Review: ARCHIE MEETS NERO WOLFE (2012) by Robert Goldsborough

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