Not Quite Dead Enough
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| Author | Rex Stout |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Nero Wolfe |
| Genre(s) | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Farrar & Rinehart |
| Released | September 7, 1944 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 220 pp. |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-26109-6 |
| Preceded by | Black Orchids |
| Followed by | The Silent Speaker |
Not Quite Dead Enough is a Nero Wolfe double mystery by Rex Stout published in 1944 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. The volume is comprised of two novellas that first appeared in The American Magazine:
- Not Quite Dead Enough (abridged, December 1942)
- Booby Trap (August 1944)
These two stories have the distinction of being the only two stories where Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's live-in employee in all the other Nero Wolfe stories, wears the uniform of the United States Army.
[edit] Plot summary
[edit] Not Quite Dead Enough
In the first story, Not Quite Dead Enough, Archie has recently joined the Army and been given the rank of "major" so that he is now Major Goodwin instead of Archie.
His high rank, as a rookie GI, reflects the fact that the Army recognizes and is making use of his civilian expertise by assigning him to domestic (counter) intelligence, specifically a unit based back in New York City, where Archie lived with his erstwhile boss Nero Wolfe before enlisting.
Since most of his civilian investigations had been done with Nero Wolfe, the Army also wishes to have Wolfe do intelligence investigations, but Wolfe thinks he didn't kill enough Germans in the previous war and so is more intent on joining the army as a soldier, not intelligence officer.
To this end, pleas from the Pentagon to this effect have been ignored, and indeed the whole household routine Wolfe is (in)famous for has already been abandoned during Archie's short absence favor of strict adherence to wartime rations (inconsistent with gourmet dining) and losing weight, which Wolfe and Fritz Brenner (the live-in cook/chef) attempt by morning exercises on the west river banks, while letters not to mention mountains of other correspondence pile up in the previously tidy office/study in the brownstone. As ludricous as the whole setup might seem, even Goodwin, when he arrives back in New York from Washington to discover it, is unable to budge Wolfe, at least at first.
Meanwhile, on the (scarce) flight back to New York from Washington, Archie has annoyed wealthy and beautiful Lily Rowan, whom he met earlier in Some Buried Caesar and with whom he has the beginnings of a romance, because he has no time for her, even though she has gone to great lengths to get the seat next to his. Lily, by way of counterattack as much as anything, asks him to look into a problem a girl-friend of hers is having. Archie, having assessed the grim situation at Wolfe's brownstone, seizes an opportunity to be doing something useful, even if isn't directly carrying out his assignment from the Pentagon.
Archie (who tells this story as he does all Wolfe stories), likes Lily but wants to be in control, and in an impish assertion of independence he takes Lily's friend to the Flamingo nightclub as part of his "investigation", causing Lily to storm home in a mild fit of jealousy. But soon she asks Archie's help in a bigger problem: her friend is dead. After rushing to the scene, Archie decides to implicate himself in the crime and get his picture in the paper, reasoning that getting him out of jail is no more foolish a war effort for Wolfe than pathetic dockside exercises. In the end (which can be revealed without hint of a spoiler), Archie carries out his assignment from the Pentagon (despite having his picture in the paper as a murder suspect), Lily gets herself a boyfriend, and Wolfe solves the underlying crime, but not without teaching both Lily and Archie a thing or two about the consequences of mixing business with romance.
[edit] Booby Trap
In the second story, Booby Trap, Major Goodwin has been working for Army Intelligence for some time already, and has recently concluded a dangerous mission concerning another problem besides the Nazis: greed by munitions contractors jockeying for post-war power, in the present case by industrial espionage concerning an advanced type of grenade.
Although Archie has managed to unravel a major piece of the puzzle by a recent mission in the South, another officer in his unit Major Cross, has just been murdered at a New York hotel, and the remaining members of the unit plus Wolfe and Congressman Shuttock, have gathered in an Army office to discuss some anonymous letters that Shuttock, as Chairman of a Congressional war committee, has been receiving about how industrial espionage is compromising the war effort and is therefore a national security matter. During the meeting, one of the officers, whose son has just been killed in action in Europe, suddenly announces that he wants to go to Washington to confer with General Carpenter, the Pentagon official in charge of the unit. He has brought a suitcase with him, and his highly irregular request is granted. Earlier, Archie has been issued one of the advanced grenades in question which he kept in Wolfe's house, now his Army barracks, mostly as a souvenir, but Wolfe didn't like to have it in the house, and before the meeting Archie has returned the grenade to the Army -- i.e. the same office.
The meeting breaks up, since the unit is rapidly depleting (1 dead, another heading to Washington, the rest under scrutiny because of the letters), and people head out of the building, but before Wolfe and Goodwin clear the building a massive explosion is heard. Since the building is operated clandestinely by Army Intelligence, the NYPD, in the shape of Inspector Cramer show up, but Wolfe and Goodwin's uncooperativeness, normal as it has been in civilian matters, confuse Cramer now that Goodwin wears an Army uniform, the same one Cramer's son is also wearing in Europe.
From this point onward, the story's resolution, as a murder mystery, recedes into relative unimportance compared to breast-beating patriotism, and how elements of American political and industrial elite still prefer their power and greed to defense of the country. The whole exercise seems bizarre and mysterious, even after the last page is read, and the so-called ending very unsatisfactory, even immoral by peacetime standards, items which clearly show the wartime mentality of the story's creation.
The story ends with Archie taking another date to the Flamingo Club — and not Lily Rowan. Unlike a Sam Spade or Raymond Chandler story, any actual romantic impulses that Archie may have are cleared into the wings, and even this final action is not necessarily a celebration but may itself contribute to the war effort in its own small way.
