"This Won't Kill You" is a 60-page Nero Wolfe mystery novelette by Rex Stout. It was first published in the September 1952 issue of The American Magazine. It later appeared in book form in the short-story collection Three Men Out, published by Viking Press in 1954.
I have read this story many times and it is one of my favorite novelettes in the Nero Wolfe series. It is very different from the normal short fiction in that series. For one thing, at the beginning of the story Nero Wolfe is attending a baseball game, which means he had to leave his home, which is very unusual. And in addition the story starts out being typical detection by Nero Wolfe, and then takes a turn into an adventure segment with Archie saving the day.
Wolfe and Archie are at a baseball game because Wolfe's friend Pierre Mondor, a famous chef from Paris, is visiting and has asked to see a baseball game. Wolfe feels he must oblige as Mondor's host, and being Wolfe he has a grateful client who can supply tickets. It soon becomes clear that the game is going very wrong; one player is missing and several of them cannot play their usual game. I won't go further into the story because I would spoil it.
Amazingly I have found a good number of reviews of this story, and about half agree with me that this is a excellent story and half don't like it all because it is so untypical.
There are two other novelettes in Three Men Out: "Invitation to Murder" and "The Zero Clue". I don't remember much about those stories but I will be reading them soon.
20 comments:
Like Sherlock Holmes and Watson, Nero Wolfe and Archie never go out of style.
And Nero at a baseball game is unusual. I am not even sure he is a fan. He strikes me more as the chess type and you can play chess at home.
You are right, Kathy, Nero Wolfe is definitely not a baseball fan, and if he was he would not go out in a crowd to watch the games. He is probably more likely to play chess, but I am not sure that I remember that ever coming up. (There is a novel about a death at a chess club.) He reads a lot; many of the novels talk about the book that Wolfe is reading at the time.
I'm one who really likes 'untypical' plots in my series reading, not sure why but there you go. I'm also a Brit who got taken to a baseball match in Pittsburgh for the experience, which was fascinating. I loved how family orientated the occasion was. Strange I suppose that I've been to a baseball match but never a football or rugby one in the UK. You make me want to dig out some short stories for October, I didn't read any in September.
I admit, Tracy, this is one of Stout's stories that I haven't read. It sounds great, though, and I can see why you liked it so well. It's funny; I do love the 'brownstone stories.' But once in a while, I enjoy seeing Wolfe in a different setting.
For one who does not to venture from home, Wolfe seems to have gone out a lot. It reminds me of someone mentioning any episode of STAR TREK to me; my automatic reaction is, "Oh. Is that the one where Spock shows emotion?"
I do not understand readers that want a writer to write the same sort of story set in the same place with the same characters time after time. Familiarity can only go so far.
This rang a bell and I checked back and I have read it, and wrote a very short review: Baseball, in This Won’t Kill You (didn’t understand the name) is always beyond me, but I was impressed by the deduction that Wolfe made as to who must have been guilty – simple and convincing.
So obviously I liked it, though have only vague memories!
Cath, I have only attended a couple of baseball games in high school, because I briefly dated a baseball player. I did attend a few football games in college.
I bet you have some good weird or ghostly short stories that would be good for October.
Margot, I like it that Stout's Nero Wolfe short stories are usually 60 or 70 pages in length, so that the plots can be more fully developed than in shorter stories.
Very true, Jerry. And often it is the novels where he leaves home that I enjoy the most.
I saw many of the original Star Trek episodes but don't have much memory of them, but I enjoyed most of the Star Trek movies with Shatner and Nimoy. We just watched all of Star Trek: Enterprise and it was interesting seeing a Vulcan on the crew at that point in the Star Trek universe.
Patti, I do like series to change over time. I like to see characters aging as a series goes along (as in Pronzini's Nameless series, although I haven't made it to the end of that one). That did not happen in the Nero Wolfe series, but the settings kept up the time the novels were written, so that the issues of the time were often a part of the plot (to a limited extent).
A baseball game mystery sounds fun. I have not read this author but I used to be a baseball fan. It's been a while though.
Moira, I had forgotten that you had read and posted on the stories in Three Men Out. I did not like the title for "This Won't Kill You" although usually Stout picked good titles for the stories; it is too close to a spoiler to give more information here. I have made it a goal to read and review all of the collections of Stout's novellas, especially since I have forgotten the stories in most cases.
Never having read anything featuring Nero Wolfe, this wouldn't seem out of place to me. It sounds like a good story!
Susan, I am not into games or any type or sports, but I find that I have enjoyed many short stories about games of all types. Well, I did watch Pro Basketball in the 1990s, and loved it.
Kelly, I have been reading the Rex Stout books about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin since I was a teenager, and it is a series I have reread multiple times. There are good number of books in the series, but most of them are around 200 pages, so they are really quick reads, even for me. It was interesting when I was in my forties and I realized that Archie was pretty sexist in the early books (written in the 30s and 40s).
I still haven't read a Nero Wolfe mystery, but it's on my To Read list.
Lark, I will be interested in your reaction if you read one of Stout's novels. As usual in long series, there is variety in the books, and some are not as good as others. It all depends on personal taste.
I have several friends who have read the entire Nero Wolfe series...50 times! I've read the entire series once. Too many books, too little time for me to re-read it.
I know, George, that is just amazing. I enjoy rereading the books in Nero Wolfe series, but I couldn't read fast enough to read all of that many times. Even though they are all short books. It has been long enough since I have read most of the short stories in the series that they seem new to me.
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