A Family Affair, by Rex Stout
If I ever had to nominate a list of things for Room 101, people that write in books would be on it. I picked this copy up second-hand, thinking that I hadn't read it before, and it's just as well it transpired that I had, because some of the notes scribbled in the margins would have given it away. Whoever the previous owner was, they'd got to the end confused over the plot, and gone back through underlining and annotating the pointers all the way through. And still to no avail, because the crucial points they thought they'd missed - who provided the key slip of paper and why it was left in the restaurant in the first place - is never actually revealed, which, frankly Mr Stout, is an extremely slack bit of plot device.
Anyway, rant over, what's the book like? This is the last of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries, and anyone who likes a good detective story should discover this series. Some people may have seen the TV adaptations which crop up occasionally on BBC2, and they are a very good depiction of the books (also a good excuse for another picture of Timothy Hutton, who plays Archie Goodwin).
In this installment, a waiter from Wolfe's favourite restaurant turns up late at night, convinced someone is trying to kill him. Archie gives him a room for the night so he can speak to Wolfe in the morning, only for a bomb to deny him the opportunity. Incensed that someone was killed in his house, Wolfe goes after the murderer, in a story that involves the events of Watergate and his own arrest - but will he find the killer in time to prevent further deaths?
As the last of the series, and for certain plot reasons, this probably isn't the best book for a newcomer to pick up, but any of the others will do as a starting place, and there are lots to choose from. Heartily recommended.
posted by Izzy @ 11:33 am
1 Comments:
I love the Nero Wolfe books and TV series, too, and I'm very jealous that it's airing in the UK again as well as in France for the first time -- because viewers abroad are getting the full-length versions of the same series that was produced and packaged for the US and Canada by A&E.
The A&E network not only cut out big chunks of the shows to make room for commercials -- A&E swipes more time for commercials vs. programs than most networks here --but also reproduced these truncated versions on the DVD sets.
So this is just a tip: Record the shows and hang on to your recordings even if you've bought the official DVDs!
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