4/9/22

Stout created the Tecumseh Fox series. I think this was before Nero Wolfe. A rich man, Ridley Thorpe, is killed and a man, Alan Grant, and his niece Nancy are suspected. Nancy climbs out of a window of police headquarters and gets to Fox's home to ask for home. He figures out that Thorpe wasn't dead. He had someone double for him and go to an isolated home while the real Ridley spent time with his mistress. He must manage a way to get Thorpe to return to life without revealing why he was gone. However, then someone kills the real Thorpe with Fox's gun. It is up to Fox to solve this problem. I like Wolfe better but this was okay.

Mediocre. Like pretty much all of Stout's non-Nero Wolfe novels. It brings home once more that Stout's great and enduring success is due almost entirely to one inspired creation -- the narrative voice of Archie Goodwin.

Lesser work. Easy-to-solve mysteries. Tec Fox seems awkward, unconvincing. ( )

I like this, not as well as the Nero Wolfe series, but as well as lots of other mysteries. ( )