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I love mystery novels, but haven't ever read a Nero Wolfe book, so this is as good an excuse as any. Looking forward to this one.
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Apr 1, 2019 16:53
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I just got to the part with the crates and I am so excited for what's going to happen here. I have only the slightest idea what's going on, but it's already really clever.
Somebody fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 03:32
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I finished the book this weekend and it was fantastic and surprisingly political. I'm so used to cozy mysteries, where they usually don't even mention that the government exists if they can help it. Excellent writing, too. It's definitely gotten me excited to check out other Nero Wolfe books.
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Apr 8, 2019 20:04
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This probably is peak political for the Wolfe books. At the low end, especially the early ones in the 1930's, they're pretty much straight cozies. Then they get gradually more and more political through the 1940's (wartime, post-war) and 1950's (red scare, etc.) and then by the time we hit the 1960's and 1970's they're more like this one, expressly political. It's actually pretty surprising it even takes that long, by all accounts wasn't Stout very vocally politically-minded for his entire career? Hieronymous Alloy posted:And not just in the obvious authorial-intent way. Like, it can be really interesting just to read the depiction of the era -- twenty dollars being a huge bribe for a working person in 1934's Fer-de-lance, for example, or the short story set during the 1946 meat shortage, or the way Wolfe constantly carps about the tax rate as it changes, etc. Related to this, I appreciate the book's little nods to the theoretical realities of private detecting that a lot of mysteries glaze over. I don't remember the specifics but the bit where Archie talks about Wolfe having to take any job that came along because it was the new year, because if it had been the end of the last year he would have lost so much on taxes that he'd only be getting half the pay anyway. As a former full-time freelancer that bit spoke to my soul in a way it really shouldn't have.
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Apr 8, 2019 20:41
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I was going to read Spook soon, so I vote for that, but yeah I'd be down for Mary Roach generally speaking
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Apr 24, 2019 18:40
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