Between 1948 and 1950, Rex Stout published three novels featuring Arnold Zeck, a powerful crime boss in New York and Nero Wolfe's archenemy. The novels have been published in an omnibus titled Triple Zeck. I reviewed the first book in the trilogy, And Be a Villain, in November 2018.
I put off rereading the second and third parts of the Zeck trilogy for a good while because I thought that I would not enjoy them. I have always had reservations about The Second Confession, and I thought I knew the story for In the Best Families backwards and forwards. But I was wrong. I enjoyed both of them.
In The Second Confession, a rich industrialist, James Sperling, hires Wolfe to prove that his daughter's boyfriend is a member of the Communist Party. Wolfe takes the case, and Archie is scheduled to spend a weekend at the Sperling's country place near Chappaqua, New York, to get a look at both the daughter, Gwenn, and the boyfriend, Louis Rony. Soon Archie discovers that Rony could be connected to Arnold Zeck, but Wolfe declines to drop the case because of that.
From that point the case gets very complicated. There is a murder, Archie is a suspect, and Zeck wreaks havoc on Wolfe's household. One of the high points is the investigation of the death by the police in Westchester County, where Archie and Wolfe have made enemies.
I have always been uncomfortable with the use of membership in the Communist Party as a major plot point in The Second Confession. But these feelings come from my perspective looking back at that issue many years later, and also I don't think Stout himself was clearly pro or con on the subject.
This book is similar to other Nero Wolfe stories, and includes many characters I enjoy: Wolfe's freelance private investigators (Saul, Fred, and Orrie plus a new one, Ruth Brady); Lon Cohen, the newspaperman who sometimes helps out; and Lt. Con Noonan of the State Police, Archie's special enemy.
In the Best Families brings the Zeck / Wolfe rivalry to a close. Mrs. Barry Rackham hires Wolfe to find out where her husband is getting money to support his lavish lifestyle. It isn't normally Wolfe's kind of case, but he needs the money. In order to meet her husband, Archie is invited to Calvin Leed's home to investigate a dog poisoning. Leeds is Mrs. Rackham's cousin and his home is on the grounds of her estate. There is a death, and Archie again must deal with the Westchester officials.
This book has the biggest changes of any of the series from the standard formula, and I don't want to get specific about what happens past this point. If the reader is new to the book, it is much better not to know further plot points. I liked the book because it was different and it was a good story. But one huge plus is that Lily Rowan has a significant role, and I always enjoy a book that includes Lily.
The trilogy is best read in publication order, although it is doubtful that I read them in order when I first read them. I would have been gettting most of my books from the library back then, reading from what was available on the shelves, and did not have easy access to lists of all the books in a series.
Also see:
Yvette's post on Triple Zeck at In So Many Words
Moira's post on Rex Stout and Politics at Clothes in Books
