Stout, Rex. And Be a Villain. Bantam, 1994.
Reason read: to continue the series started a year ago!
Nero Wolfe is crafty. The way he finds clients is to insert himself into a dilemma (pretty much always a murder) with the promise of a solution (usually by proving someone’s innocence)…for a price (usually pretty steep). However it is up to Archie Goodwin to sell that service and bring the client onboard. When on-air guest Cyril Orchard is murdered by cyanide poisoning during Madeline Fraser’s radio program, Archie’s spin is that the heat will be off Madeline as a suspect if she hires the great Nero Wolfe to find the real killer. Logic prevails and Madeline agrees to Wolfe’s demands; except now it looks like the poison was meant for her. Is someone out there is trying to kill her? At the same time Beula Poole is found shot to death and a seemingly unrelated gynecologist is being blackmailed. Then a third person is poisoned. Are all of these events related? The case so stumps Wolfe that he begrudgingly involves his on again-off again nemesis, Inspector Cramer. As usual, Goodwin is the star of the show.
Line I liked, “No doctor should assume responsibility for the health of one he loves or one he hates” (p 168).
Author fact: according to one biography, Rex Stout devised and implemented a school banking system.
Book trivia: As with most Stout books the publishers lets the reader peek behind this curtain. This time And Be A Villain shared Viking’s lawyers’ attempt to find any detail that resembled real people or situations.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).
~*LunaSea*~ 