Murder by the Book by Rex Stout, 1951

 

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About the author: Rex Stout (1886 – 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and 39 novellas between 1934 and 1975. (wikipedia). (bibliography)

Major characters:

Joan Wellman, editor, deceased prior to story

John Wellman, her father

Leonard Dykes, law clerk and author, a.k.a. Baird Archer

Rachel Abrams, typist

James A. Corrigan, senior partner in a law firm

Nero Wolfe, private detective

Archie Goodwin, private detective

Inspector Cramer, NYC Homicide Division

Locale: New York City

Synopsis: Inspector Cramer consults Nero Wolfe about the death of law clerk Leonard Dykes, found floating in the East River. Police found among his effects a list of names which puzzles them. Wolfe suggests it is a list of possible pseudonyms for a writer

Wolfe is then approached by John Wellman, and hired to investigate the death of his daughter, Joan Wellman, victim of a hit-and-run car accident. Joan had been an editor for a book publisher. Wolfe finds that Joan Wellman had recently rejected a novel, Put Not Your Trust by Baird Archer, and that was one of the names on Dykes' list. This connects her death with that of Dykes - and it becomes apparent Dykes wrote the novel under the name of Baird Archer. 

Dykes had clerked for a law firm consisting of James A. Corrigan, Emmet Phelps, Louis Kustin, and Frederick Briggs. The firm also employs Conroy O'Malley, who had been disbarred following an anonymous accusation of bribing a juror.

The two people who died had one thing in common - they both knew what was in the manuscript. Wolfe focuses on who else may have read it, which leads to typist Rachel Abrams. Archie Goodwin heads to her office, arriving just after someone had thrown her out her window to her death. Three persons have now died, and the trail points to someone in the law firm as the culprit.

Review: This one is fast-paced and a page-turner, which I read over two evenings. We don't get to know the first two victims at all, they are dead before the story begins. We also see very little of Wolfe's client, John Wellman. He heads right back to Peoria and only checks in periodically.

It quickly becomes apparent that the manuscript (we never get to see any of it other than the title) is poison, and anyone who has read it is a target. But what is in it that is so dangerous? We do finally find out, but it is not too exciting a reveal. 

Archie's method of pumping the female staff of the law office is amusing although quite unrealistic, although maybe he could have pulled it off in 1951. 

This has one of Stout's famous 'false endings'. It is all wrapped up with a bow and we are ready for "The End" when Wolfe declares the person fingered is not the murderer, and it is someone else entirely. I should have seen it coming, since there were 20+ pages remaining, but it fooled me as always. The killer is identified in the usual office denouément with all the chairs lined up. As usual, the person whom Purley Stebbins stands behind is the killer.