Short Story Wednesday: Two Novellas by Rex Stout

 

In early October I reviewed "This Won't Kill You", a novella in Three Men Out by Rex Stout. Today I am discussing the other two novellas in that book: "Invitation to Murder" and "The Zero Clue". Both of those stories were first published in The American Magazine in 1953.

For a brief introduction to the series of books and novellas:

Nero Wolfe is an armchair detective, preferring to do all his detecting from home. He is a genius, a lover of orchids and fine food, who supports himself (and his household) as a private detective. Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the stories, is both his assistant and a private investigator, and he does most of the legwork. They live in a New York brownstone and share the house with Theodore, a plant expert who cares for Wolfe's orchids, and Felix, Wolfe's cook. 

"Invitation to Murder"

Herman Lewent wants Nero Wolfe to investigate Theodore Huck and the three women that he employees at his mansion. Huck was married to Herman Lewent's sister, who died a year earlier. Lewent had received $1000 a month from his sister since their father died and left his estate to her. Huck had continued to give him that money, but Lewent thinks he deserves more. However, what he really wants Wolfe to figure out is whether one of Huck's employees killed his sister, who died of Ptomaine poisoning. Lewent believes that all three women (a housekeeper, a nurse, and a secretary) would be interested in marrying Huck, and one of them murdered his sister to get her out of the way. Wolfe won't leave his home to investigate but he allows Archie to go in his mansion, to scope out the household and see if there is any basis for the accusation.

Eventually Archie decides that Wolfe really needs to be at Huck's mansion, so he tricks him into coming there. And, of course, the case is solved. 

This is an old-fashioned puzzle mystery, and in this case Stout clearly provides clues to what happened, although I am sure I did not figure out the first time I read it. In these shorter works by Stout, I primarily enjoy Archie's narration and the story telling. 

"The Zero Clue" 

Leo Heller is a professor of mathematics who specializes in probability and has made a lot of money using his talents in that area. Wolfe had some dealings with him earlier and despises the man. When Heller wants help from Wolfe to determine if one of his clients committed murder, Wolfe refuses. But Archie decides to go talk to Heller at his office, in an attempt to gather information that will convince Wolfe to take the case.

When Archie arrives at Heller's office, there are several people there waiting to see Heller either in the lobby of the building or in Heller's waiting room on the fifth floor. Archie goes into Heller's office, finds it empty, and snoops around a bit while he waits. Heller does not show up and Archie leaves. Later in the day, the police discover Heller's dead body in the closet of the office, and they find out that Archie was there. Thus, Inspector Cramer of Manhattan Homicide shows up at Wolfe's door. 

Most of this story is about Wolfe interviewing six suspects to get more information about their business with Leo Heller while Inspector Cramer listens in. Cramer is one of my favorite characters in the Nero Wolfe stories, so I always enjoy it when he shows up. This time Wolfe and Cramer get along pretty well. 

This story also has clues to the solution, but the reader has to know some obscure mathematical facts to be able to catch them, so I am not sure it counts as playing fair with the reader. Not that I think Rex Stout put much emphasis on that part of mystery plots.

I enjoyed learning more about mathematics. My major was mathematics in college but I am sure I did not know the arcane facts that Wolfe uses to make the deduction before I read that story for the first time. Regardless, "The Zero Clue" was my favorite between these two novellas, because I think it is a very clever and entertaining story.

Annual Book Sale 2024: My Husband's Books

Every year in September we attend the Planned Parenthood book sale, which lasts ten days. We usually visit a minimum of five times. This year our visits were curtailed because my husband and I had Covid when the sale began. 

Nevertheless, we did find many books to add to our collection. These are six of the books my husband found. As you can see from this list, he enjoys reading about social history.

My husband purchased the following three books about daily life in various historical periods in England. The author is Elizabeth Burton. The three books were published between 1958 and 1972, and all of them have lovely illustrations by Felix Kelly. In the 1940s she published 6 novels as Susan Alice Kerby. Wikipedia describes them as comic fantasy novels. 

The Elizabethans at Home by Elizabeth Burton.

First published in 1958. This edition is a reprint from 1970.

From the dust jacket:

In this reissue of Miss Burton's highly praised and highly successful domestic history of the Elizabethans, she draws most entertainingly on a wealth of contemporary sources. How did the Elizabethans really live? What was ordinary existence like for the Elizabethan man and woman? What sort of furniture did they use? What were their staple diets? What sort of remedies did they keep in their medicine chests? How did they get their news? What games did they play? These and other questions are answered in this fascinating account which is illuminated by the superb drawings of Felix Kelly.

The Georgians at Home by Elizabeth Burton

Published by Longmans, Green & Co., 1967.

From the dust jacket:

In The Georgians at Home, she covers the period from the accession of George the First to the death of George the Fourth, and from a mass of sources, many of them unpublished, she presents a fascinating and remarkably complete picture of Georgian domestic life in all its detail.

She is as interested in the chattels and hovels of the poor as she is in the architecture, gardens, furniture and interior decoration of the great houses built by Kent, Gibbs, Adam, Holland, Nash, Soane and others of a glorious age. Cooking and food; glass, china and utensils; the relative cost of living; the bizarre and often horrifying medical remedies of doctors and quacks, the use of cosmetics; travel, transport and amusements–from Elizabeth Burton's meticulous research into such minutiae a whole way of life emerges.

The Early Victorians at Home by Elizabeth Burton

Published by Longmans, Green & Co., 1972.

From the dust jacket:

The Early Victorians at Home gives a wonderfully detailed account of the domestic lives of our ancestors–their houses, furniture, food, medicine, recreations, gardens–with numerous sidelights on the minutiae of every day life at all levels of society.

The Last Country Houses by Charles Aslet

From the Goodreads description:

The magnificent country houses built in Britain between 1890 and 1939 were the last monuments to a vanishing age. Many of these great mammoths of domestic architecture were unsuited to the changes in economic and social priorities that followed the two world wars, and rapidly became extinct. Those that survive, however, provide tangible evidence of the life and death if an extraordinarily prosperous age. This book recounts the architectural and social history of this era, describing the clients, the architects, the styles and accoutrements of the country houses. 

Nature's Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present by Philipp Blom

From the Goodreads description:

Although hints of a crisis appeared as early as the 1570s, the temperature by the end of the sixteenth century plummeted so drastically that Mediterranean harbors were covered with ice, birds literally dropped out of the sky, and “frost fairs” were erected on a frozen Thames–with kiosks, taverns, and even brothels that become a semi-permanent part of the city.

Recounting the deep legacy and far-ranging consequences of this “Little Ice Age,” acclaimed historian Philipp Blom reveals how the European landscape had suddenly, but ineradicably, changed by the mid-seventeenth century. While apocalyptic weather patterns destroyed entire harvests and incited mass migrations, they gave rise to the growth of European cities, the emergence of early capitalism, and the vigorous stirrings of the Enlightenment. A timely examination of how a society responds to profound and unexpected change, Nature’s Mutiny will transform the way we think about climate change in the twenty-first century and beyond.

 

McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories by Michael Chabon (editor),  Mike Mignola  (Illustrator)

From the Goodreads description:

Michael Chabon is back with a brand-new collection that reinvigorates the stay-up-all-night, edge-of-the seat, fingernail-biting, page-turning tradition of literary short stories, featuring Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Peter Straub, David Mitchell, Jonathan Lethem, Heidi Julavits, Roddy Doyle, and more!

A complete list of the authors and their stories:

• Margaret Atwood - Lusus Naturae
• David Mitchell - What You Do Not Know You Want
• Jonathan Lethem - Vivian Relf
• Ayelet Waldman - Minnow
• Steve Erickson - Zeroville
• Stephen King - Lisey and the Madman
• Jason Roberts - 7C
• Heidi Julavits - The Miniaturist
• Roddy Doyle - The Child
• Daniel Handler - Delmonico
• Charles D’Ambrosio - The Scheme of Things
• Poppy Z. Brite - The Devil of Delery Street
• China Mieville - Reports of Certain Events in London
• Joyce Carol Oates - The Fabled Light-house at Viña del Mar
• Peter Straub - Mr. Aickman’s Air Rifle

Short Story Wednesday: "Dead Man's Shoe" by Floyd Sullivan

 

This story was published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine January/February 2023. I had not heard of this author before, but he had an earlier story published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine September/October 2021 which I will also read.

"Dead Man's Shoe" by Floyd Sullivan

Rick Peters tells the story of his brief visit to a cabin on Keuka Lake in New York. He was taking a vacation from his job as a professional photographer. The local sheriff rings the doorbell and asks Rick to take photos of an object on a nearby pier. The object turns out to be an athletic shoe with a foot in it. The foot had been sawed off a body just above the ankle. 

This was a slow burn story. Peters doesn't want to give up on figuring what was behind the discovery of the foot. There are some elements that stretched my ability to suspend disbelief, but I enjoyed the story and the ending was very satisfactory.

Last line: "I have no plans to return to the Finger Lakes. Ever."

There is an article about the inspiration for this story at Trace Evidence.