Stout, Rex. The League of Frightened Men. Farrar & Rhinehart, Inc. 1935.
Reason read: I kicked off the Nero Wolfe series because League of Frightened Men begins in the month of November. I will continue to read the series in honor of Rex Stout’s birth month in December.
While in college, years ago, a fraternity of men pulled a prank that left one of their brothers horribly handicapped. The fraternity men spend the rest of their lives trying to make amends to Paul Chapin, until years later, one by one, brothers are winding up dead or missing. Has their scarred-for-life brother finally decided to seek revenge? It certainly seems that way when poems appear after each death, cryptically pointing the finger back at the group and the accident suffered so long ago. Nero is hired to find a missing fraternity brother and stop the killings before the entire league of frightened men is wiped out.
Because I will be spending a lot of time with Nero Wolfe, I thought I would keep track of his traits. For example, here is what I know so far: Nero likes beer for breakfast. He is considered obese. He has lived at West 35th Street in New York City for the last twenty years (thirteen alone and the last seven with his sidekick, Archie) and it takes an act of god to get him to leave his apartment. Nero is an avid reader and likes tending to his orchids. His right hand man, Archie, is a long time friend and they yell at each other and bicker like an old married couple. As an aside, Archie drinks a lot of milk; almost as much as the beer as Nero puts away.
As an aside, be forewarned! There are several examples of unflattering name calling that, by today’s standards, would be considered politically incorrect.
Line I liked, “You must not let the oddities of this case perplex you to the point of idiocy” (p 158).
Author fact: According to Wikipedia, Rex Stout died in Danbury, Connecticut.
Book trivia: League of Frightened Men was first serialized in the Saturday Evening Post.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the long awaited chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).
~*LunaSea*~ 