Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Before Midnight
Rex Stout
Ahh, yes. No reading material is quite as pleasurable to take in idly than a reposed detective novel of Nero and Archie. They're such a team, such a couple! My heart never races during the action scenes, my intellect is never enticed by the latest case. Rex Stout writes in such a way that I enjoy the "mystery" of it all, but the real crux of each installation of his serial is some slight new development on Archie and Wolfe's inner world. Archie with his photographic memory, or perhaps it is aural-graphic memory would be the better term, never forgets to shower complete admiration upon his boss to the public eye and berate him once back in their brownstone (in the mid fifties of Manhattan? Somewhere thereabout). And Wolfe is essentially constant throughout, a grumpy though mannered oratician, reclined somewhere within his domicile.
This particular installation finds the pair baffled by the case of a stolen wallet. A wallet stolen from the body of a murdered man, who devised riddles for famous women throughout history for "Pour Amour" perfume. Apparently this poor sucker wrote all of the answeres to the riddles on a sheet of paper and kept it in his wallet. Just before he was murdered, he advertised the fact. Of course they are hired by none other than a party highly suspect clients, of which one, of course, turns out to be the murderer.
But nonetheless Wolfe and Archie are not aware of this until the last few pages of the book, and Wolfe spends most of his time pretending not to know or care whom the murderer is, since he was hired only to find the poor man's wallet and
fix up the derailed contest.
As usual, our story ends when Wolfe badgers an audience of potential suspects until one of them slips up and spills the beans.
Ahh, yes. No reading material is quite as pleasurable to take in idly than a reposed detective novel of Nero and Archie. They're such a team, such a couple! My heart never races during the action scenes, my intellect is never enticed by the latest case. Rex Stout writes in such a way that I enjoy the "mystery" of it all, but the real crux of each installation of his serial is some slight new development on Archie and Wolfe's inner world. Archie with his photographic memory, or perhaps it is aural-graphic memory would be the better term, never forgets to shower complete admiration upon his boss to the public eye and berate him once back in their brownstone (in the mid fifties of Manhattan? Somewhere thereabout). And Wolfe is essentially constant throughout, a grumpy though mannered oratician, reclined somewhere within his domicile.
This particular installation finds the pair baffled by the case of a stolen wallet. A wallet stolen from the body of a murdered man, who devised riddles for famous women throughout history for "Pour Amour" perfume. Apparently this poor sucker wrote all of the answeres to the riddles on a sheet of paper and kept it in his wallet. Just before he was murdered, he advertised the fact. Of course they are hired by none other than a party highly suspect clients, of which one, of course, turns out to be the murderer.
But nonetheless Wolfe and Archie are not aware of this until the last few pages of the book, and Wolfe spends most of his time pretending not to know or care whom the murderer is, since he was hired only to find the poor man's wallet and
fix up the derailed contest.
As usual, our story ends when Wolfe badgers an audience of potential suspects until one of them slips up and spills the beans.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Yes I've been reading..
I can't remember everything that I have read over that past several months; here are the ones that I still remember:
Roots (amazing book! There is even a little bit about NC near where I now live)
One Story - My favorite print subscription.
Alice in Wonderland - on my Palm, I got it from Project Gutenberg. It really is better in print, so good in fact that I downloaded the other 14 or 15 books in the Alice in Wonderland series to put onto my Palm. Only, I haven't put them on there yet, I've fizzled a little. I'll get there.
Roots (amazing book! There is even a little bit about NC near where I now live)
One Story - My favorite print subscription.
Alice in Wonderland - on my Palm, I got it from Project Gutenberg. It really is better in print, so good in fact that I downloaded the other 14 or 15 books in the Alice in Wonderland series to put onto my Palm. Only, I haven't put them on there yet, I've fizzled a little. I'll get there.
