Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge: OVER MY DEAD BODY (1939) by Rex Stout

Okay, another entry in the on-going and oh-so-fun Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge hosted by Bev over at her blog, MY READER'S BLOCK.  This has been my favorite challenge so far this year possibly because, for me, reading vintage is NO real challenge. Ha!

OVER MY DEAD BODY is Rex Stout at his very best. It has the proper mixture of mystery, detecting, fun, Inspector Cramer, Archie's weisenheimer cracks and Wolfe's genius. (Though in truth, this tale requires rather less use of genius than some of Wolfe's other more confounding puzzles.) It also adds to the mix, some hometown gals from Yugoslavia (Montenegro being Wolfe's early stomping grounds) who speak Serbo-Croat and English with aceents that Archie makes sure to have some phonetic fun with:

The bell rang and I went to the front and opened the door and there she was. I said good morning.

"Pliz," she said, "I would like to see Misturr Nero Wolfe."

Or you might have spelled it plihz or plizz or plihsz. However you spelled it, it wasn't Middle West or New England or Park Avenue or even East Side. It wasn't American and naturally it irritated me a little.

When one of the gals makes it known that she is Wolfe's long-lost daughter, well, the fur begins to fly. Archie tells Wolfe that he's made up his mind to marry the daughter and then he supposes, he'd have to call Wolfe, "Dad." Wolfe tells him, and rightly so, to shut up.

There's not much here I don't like since, for me, this is one of the best of the Wolfe books and one of the more visual ones since lots of colorful Serbo-Croat phrases are sprinkled through-out and the whole idea of a fencing studio is colorful enough in and of itself. It also has one scene in which I, yes, I admit it - I howled with laughter. The section comes late in the book once Wolfe finds out the real identity of a woman passing herself off as Madame Zorka, Yugoslavian refugee and fashion designer. The name Rex Stout comes up with for this character, not to mention, the place of birth, is just pure delight.

I have the feeling that Stout had tons of fun writing this and it surely shows.

From the beginning: When Carla Lovchen shows up at the brownstone wanting to nudge Wolfe into helping her friend, Neya Tormic - a fellow refugee and fencing master at the midtown studio of  Nikola Miltan - who has been accused of stealing diamonds from a fencing client, Wolfe's immediate reaction is to say 'no'. Until he learns that the infamous 'Donevitch gang' as he refers to a royal family faction that is in cahoots with the Nazis, trying to undermine a Yugoslavia currently involved in a tug of war with other European nations.

Archie, just for the heck of it, goes sniffing about at Miltan's studio and murder ensues: Percy Ludlow - later found to be a British spy - is found dead, killed by a fencing foil (epee) whose blunt tip had been doctored with a famous 'col de mort' gadget, part of Miltan's fencing curiosity collection.

When the deadly tip, wrapped in a bloody fencing glove is stuffed into Archie's coat pocket and no one notices its presence but Archie, he makes a fast getaway through the very fingers of the cops as they gather at the studio crime scene.

As Cramer says later when he finds out why Archie skipped from the crime scene and what he had in his pocker and who put it there: "...Mr. Goodwin doesn't turn things over to the police. Mr. Goodwin climbs a fence and runs home to papa and says see what I got, and papa says - " A funny bit because Cramer hits it right on the nose. Indelicate but correct - that is exactly what Archie does.

It is obvious that this case is more than a murder, sordid enough though it is, but when Cramer admits to Wolfe that his bosses are urging him to 'finesse' the case because of the international complications and still, another murder occurs - of a German agent this time - the Lieutenant practically camps out in Wolfe's office waiting for a stroke of genius from Wolfe to hand him the name of the guilty party.

Later, Archie's gift for quick-minded chicanery is much in evidence as he spirits Carla Lovchen from under the cops' noses - she is being hunted and has been spotted in an office building downtown - dressed as a bellhop. Archie's guts of steel of very much in evidence in OVER MY DEAD BODY and I can't remember more comings and goings, more activity in and out of the brownstone, as in this book written in 1939, but not showing a bit of age. Just another excellent entry in the long-running tales of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

Besides a corking good story, the book also contains several excellent one liners.

Wolfe says:"Money and morals don't speak."

Archie says: "I was trying to keep my brain cleared for action.

Cramer says: "Hell, I'm not conceited."

Archie says: I rocked on my heels for a half a minute, gazing at the chinless wonder and using my brain up to capacity.

And oh yes, there is, of course, an unexpected twist at the end which involves the true identity of  Wolfe's 'daughter'. I might add: This is also the book in which Wolfe saves his own life with a beer bottle.You would expect nothing less.

Use this link to see all the Nero Wolfe titles written by Rex Stout.

Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge: TOO MANY WOMEN (1947) by Rex Stout

Lately it sure seems like All Nero Wolfe - All the Time around here. What can I tell you except that I'm on a Wolfe Binge, having a great old time re-reading my favorites by Rex Stout. And since many of the books were written before 1960, they qualify for the Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge currently on-going with Bev of MY READER'S BLOCK at the helm. Check her blog to see who else is participating and what great vintage books they're reading.

TOO MANY WOMEN finds Wolfe and Archie confounded by one of the more difficult cases of their careers - primarily because there are just no clues to be had and most of their time is spent doing nothing. Well, except for Wolfe being grouchy and Archie going out dancing (which he loves to do and is expert at) with a variety of eager, young secretaries. All the dancing is a result of Archie having gone to work 'undercover' as a personnel expert at the corporate headquarters of an engineering supply company. Naylor-Kerr is their current client, in the person of Jasper Pine, President. Wolfe and Archie have been retained to find out if one of their employees, Waldo Wilmot Moore, has been murdered. Moore was the victim of an alleged hit and run and the crime is already a few months old. While it is a homicide, the police do not think it was premeditated murder.

When the spectre of intentional murder is raised by Jasper Pine's brother-in-law, a seriously weird sort of guy who wants to replace Pine as president of the corporation, the board of directors decide to hire someone to investigate. Nero Wolfe is that someone.

After a second murder occurs, another hit and run, and still no clues are forthcoming and the cops breathing hard with Cramer wanting to know how Wolfe knew that Moore had been murdered to begin with, there seems no alternative but to pull a fast one. Which Wolfe and Archie do.

What TOO MANY WOMEN lacks in excitement, it makes up for by author Rex Stout obviously having a ton of fun with Archie in the wide open workspace of Naylor-Kerr where Archie is turned loose - like a kid in a candy store.

One good glance and I liked the job. The girls. All right there, all being paid to stay right there, and me being paid to move freely about and converse with anyone whomever, which was down in black and white. Probably after I had been there a couple of years I would find that close-ups revealed inferior individual specimens. Grade B or lower in age, contours, skin quality, voice or level of intellect, but from where I stood at nine-fifty-two Wednesday morning it was enough to take your breath away. At least half a thousand of them, and the general and overwhelming impression was of - clean, young, healthy, friendly, spirited, beautiful and ready. I stood and filled my eyes, trying to look detached. It was an ocean of opportunity.

Feeling just the teensiest bit guilty when, in the course of the case, Archie is called upon to date, dine and dance with a bevy of beauties - with the corporation footing the bill - Archie debates the ethics of the thing, but figures all is fair when on the hunt for a killer. The interaction between Archie and the various women is so much fun to read as he works his charm to try and find a clue. But there are no clues to be had.

There are several strong women characters in TOO MANY WOMEN made memorable by Rex Stout's tongue in cheek attitude as he has Archie (and occasionally Wolfe) interact with an older, married woman with an eye for younger men (she almost immediately offers Archie season tickets to the Giants and the Yankees), a secretary with a heavy-duty secret she refuses to reveal no matter how much charm Archie pours on, a good time gal with a love of gossip and an inability to spell, and an enthusiastically affectionate young married (estranged) whose husband refuses to take no for an answer - he and Archie are forced to duke it out in the street in front of the brownstone.

By the time, near the end, when out of desperation, Wolfe pulls a fast one, it not only flushes out a murderer but Archie is forced to leave Naylor-Kerr and an entire floor full of women, forever.

Oh, and he also returns the baseball season tickets with a pithy little note.

Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge: PRISONER'S BASE (1952) by Rex Stout

The Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge is hosted by Bev at her blog, MY READER'S BLOCK. I'm nearing the end of my category - Take 'Em To Trial (16 + books) and since I read vintage all year round, I'll just continue reading and listing as we go along. Please check here to see who else is participating and what books they've been reading.
PRISONER'S BASE is a re-read for me, since I am currently in a Nero Wolfe Reading Binge mood, so I'm actually killing two birds with one stone - more or less. This is one of the Wolfe books with several cold-hearted murders and I admit, I like it when there are multiples - though I understand they can't ALL be multiples or I'd soon grow tired of the blood letting. But in this one the killer is particularly cruel and hard-hearted and Archie Goodwin feels a tug on his conscience.

It's kind of hard to like Wolfe in this one, especially in the first third of the book when because of his truculence and stubborn misogynist inclinations, a woman is murdered. He excuses it and his conscience and you might agree with his sophistry and feel differently about it, but I don't. I blame both Wolfe and Archie for being so self-indulgent that they can't spot real trouble when it shows up in the form of a young heiress needing to spend the night at the brownstone. Okay, so Priscilla Eads is a rich gadabout and makes certain imperious assumptions because she is used to getting her own way, but it's obvious that something is in the works and sending her back out into the street late at night is not the way to handle her.

Priscillia is on the eve of her 25th birthday and a Big Payoff - a huge inheritance from her father. But his will states that if she dies before that birthday, the money goes back into the Softdown Corporation (founded by Eads) to be divided up by the board of directors.

Once she's murdered, strangled that very same night, in her apartment by a killer who was waiting for her return, Archie feels that tug on his conscience. Wolfe doesn't. In fact, he refuses to help Archie in his quest to find Priscilla's killer primarily because there's no money in it for him. Hey, a man's gotta' live.

But when Archie is picked up downtown by his arch enemy, Detective Rowcliff, for impersonating a police officer (strictly speaking, he didn't), pursuing the investigation on his own, Wolfe steps in. He has been picked up at the townhouse, by Rowcliff barreling his way past Fritz at the front door, daring to clomp his way up the stairs to Wolfe's plant room. Wolfe's outrage knows no bounds and he informs the police that Archie is now his client. Archie overhears all this through a slightly opened door while down at police headquarters wandering about looking for a phone.

"This whole performance," Nero Wolfe was saying, "is based on an idiotic assumption, which was natural and indeed inevitable since Mr. Rowcliff is your champion ass - the assumption that Mr. Goodwin and I are both cretins. I do not deny that at times in the past I have been less than candid with you - I will acknowledge, to humor you, that I have humbugged and hoodwinked to serve my purpose - but I still have my license, and you know what that means. It means that on balance I have helped you more than I have hurt you - not the community, which is another matter, by you, Mr. Cramer, and you, Mr. Bowen, and of course you others too."


So the DA himself was in the audience.

"It means also that I have known where to stop, and Mr. Goodwin has too. That is our unbroken record, and you know it. But what happens today? Following my customary routine, at four o'clock this afternoon I go up to my plant rooms for two hours of relaxation. I had been there but a short time when I hear a commotion and go to investigate. It is Mr. Rowcliff. He has taken advantage of the absence of Mr. Goodwin, whom he fears and petulantly envies, and has entered my house by force and - "

"That's a lie!" Rowcliff's voice came. "I rang and - "

"Shut up!" Wolfe roared...In a moment he went on, not roaring but not whispering either, "As you all know a, a policeman has no more right to enter a man's home than anyone else, except under adequately defined circumstances. But such a right is often usurped, as today when my cook and housekeeper unlatched the door and Mr. Rowcliff pushed it open against resistance, entered, brushed my employee aside, and ignored all protests while he was illegally mounting three flights of stairs, erupting into my plant rooms, and invading my privacy."

I leaned against the jamb and got comfortable.

"He was ass enough to suppose I would speak with him. Naturally I ordered him out. He insisted I must answer questions. When I persisted in my refusal and turned to leave him, he intercepted me, displayed a warrant for my arrest as a material witness in a murder case, and put a hand on me." The voice suddenly went lower and much colder. "I will not have a hand put on me, gentlemen. I like no man's hand on me...I had assumed, charitably, that some major misapprehension, possibly even excusable, had driven Mr. Rowcliff to this frenzied zeal. But I learned from you, Mr. Bowen, that is was merely an insane fit of nincompoopery...

"I didn't have a client this morning, or even an hour ago, but now I have. Mr. Rowcliff's ferocious spasms, countenanced by you gentlemen, have made the challenge ineluctable. When Mr. Goodwin said that I was not concerned in this matter and that he was acting solely in his own personal interest, he was telling the truth. As you may know, he is not indifferent to those attributes of young women that constitute the chief reliance of our race in our gallant struggle against the menace of insects.

He is especially vulnerable to young women who possess not only those more obvious charms but also have a knack of stimulating his love of chivalry and adventure and his preoccupation with the picturesque and the passionate. Priscilla Eads was such a woman. She spent some time with Mr. Goodwin yesterday...Within three hours of her eviction by him at my behest, she was brutally murdered. I will not say that the effect on him amounted to derangement, but it was considerable. He bounded out of my house like a man obsessed, after telling me that he was going single-handedly after a murderer.....It was pathetic, but it was also humane, romantic, and thoroughly admirable, and your callous and churlish treatment of him leaves me with no alternative. I am at his service. He is my client."

...The dry cutting voice of Bowen, the DA, put in, "All that rigamarole was leading up to that?"

I pushed the door open and stepped in.

After that wonderful tirade, I forgave Wolfe his initial bad behavior and read on. The murderer isn't finished yet. It will take a great deal of work on the part of Wolfe, Archie and the rest of the guys, to finally flush a daring, cold-blooded and very nasty killer out into the open.

Lured By the Past

Okay, it seems I am in danger of sinking back into the past and indulging my love of Vintage Mysteries to the exclusion of anything else - at least for now. See, here's the problem: once I begin reading - in this case, Ellery Queen - I get caught up in the ways of the past, the rhythm of the writing, the social niceties and strictures, the fashions (the hat wearing, especially, and the dressing for dinner), but most importantly, I get caught up in the aura. I'm a sucker for aura, not to mention a nice, lurid cover. The past speaks to me.

I am in real danger of fading away here.

I wonder if this happens to anyone else? If so, how do you hold it in abeyance? I'm seeking a balance here. Because if allowed to run riot, I'll go to the library and check out every Vintage Mystery author they have in stock. Balance is what's needed. Obviously. Some kind of mantra I can hum to myself when in danger of overdosing on Dorothy Sayers or anyone else from that era. Something soothing I can use to quell my Vintage mania. (I knew this would happen when I joined the Challenge, but I went ahead and did it anyway. Obviously, I must like to live dangerously.)

The ideal, of course, would be to strike a good balance between past and present, for instance, I could go this reading route: vintage, modern, vintage, modern, vintage, Victorian, modern, vintage, Victorian, modern, vintage, modern, vintage.....you get it. But I have a feeling I'm going to have trouble with this . Yup, trouble is coming down the pike. (I am looking around for this Ellery Queen mystery merely on the strength of the cover. Love it.)

What will happen when I begin reading Victorian classics for my Victorian Literature Reading Challenge, I just don't know.

Some cogent words of advice would be nice just about now.

Please note: I can't make out the name of the artist of the wonderfully atmospheric courtroom scene at the top of my post, but the painting is so right on the money, I thought I'd post it anyway. If anyone knows who the artist is, I'll be glad to attribute. (Or if anyone squawks, I'll remove the painting entirely.)

Vintage Mysteries: Book One

First book of the New Year:

Coincidentally, the book I'm reading on this first day of the new year is not merely a great mystery, but a great vintage mystery (published in 1949) - perfect for kicking off the Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge hosted by My Reader's Block.

The book is titled: CAT OF MANY TAILS. All about a mad strangler at large in NYC. It's part of a three book anthology I picked up at the library.

I'm sure there will be even more Ellery Queens on my TBR pile before the end of this year. I though I was starting out with one I'd read many years ago, but as I'm reading it, I'm thinking well, maybe not. We'll see as I go along. Terrific story, so far.