The League of Frightened Men
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Author | Rex Stout |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Nero Wolfe |
| Genre(s) | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Farrar & Rinehart |
| Released | August 14, 1935 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 308 pp. |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-76298-2 |
| Preceded by | Fer-de-Lance |
| Followed by | The Rubber Band |
The League of Frightened Men is the second Nero Wolfe mystery by Rex Stout. The story was serialized in six issues of The Saturday Evening Post (June 15–July 20, 1935) under the title "The Frightened Men." The novel was published in 1935 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.
[edit] Plot summary
An author, Paul Chapin, is on trial for alleged obscenity in his popular novel. Wolfe reads the book, then tells Archie that a potential client had asked Wolfe to arrange to protect him from Chapin. The potential client, along with some classmates at Harvard, had taken part in a hazing incident years before, in which Chapin was crippled. Now some of the "League of Frightened Men" — who chipped in to help Chapin after the accident — have begun dying. It is unclear whether that is through malice or by chance, but the surviving members of the League wish to hire Wolfe to find out. (The prominent American man of letters Edmund Wilson wrote in a review in The New Yorker that the book "makes use of a clever psychological idea.")
[edit] Adaptations
Columbia Pictures adapted the novel for its 1937 film The League of Frightened Men. Lionel Stander reprised his Meet Nero Wolfe role as Archie Goodwin, and Walter Connolly starred as Nero Wolfe.
