The Silent Speaker
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| Author | Rex Stout |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Nero Wolfe |
| Genre(s) | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
| Released | October 21, 1946 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 308 pp. |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-23497-8 |
| Preceded by | Not Quite Dead Enough |
| Followed by | Too Many Women |
The Silent Speaker is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1946.
Rex Stout wrote very few Nero Wolfe stories during World War II, and instead founded and devoted himself to running the Writers' War Board (WWB)[1]. The Silent Speaker was published just after the war, and key aspects of the book's atmosphere reflect lingering effects of the war: severe housing shortages, and other restrictions on consumer supply, including government regulation of prices.
Contents |
[edit] Explanation of the novel's title
The novel's title alludes to what was at the time a new technology: a voice recorder intended for the dictation of letters and memos – what would later become known generically as a Dictaphone. Before his death, Cheney Boone had dictated some memos onto recording cylinders, some of which then turned up missing. Wolfe and Archie are able to acquire several of Boone's cylinders, and listen to them post-mortem: the speaker is silent, but his words are heard.
[edit] Plot summary
This novel centers on the fictional Bureau of Price Regulation (BPR), an agency of the Federal government, and its struggles with private industry, represented by the National Industrial Association (NIA).
The head of the BPR, Cheney Boone, has been murdered just before he was to deliver an address to the NIA at the Waldorf Astoria.
Nero Wolfe, in serious need of cash (possibly because he has worked without fee for the United States government throughout World War II), solicits and then accepts a commission from the NIA to identify the murderer. The general public blames the NIA itself, and its membership, for Boone's murder, and the NIA considers this an ongoing PR disaster.
Most Nero Wolfe novels have several themes. Those played out in The Silent Speaker include:
- Institutional conflict between the BPR and NIA. Although Wolfe is working for the NIA, he avoids direct involvement in its war with the BPR.
- Conflict among the NYPD, FBI, NIA, BPR, and Wolfe for control of the investigation.
- Personal conflict between Wolfe and various suspects.
- Personal attraction between Archie and Phoebe Gunther, a high-level BPR staffer. Archie's infatuation with Phoebe [2] appears even stronger than his attachment to either Lily Rowan or Lucy Valdon.
[edit] Characters in "The Silent Speaker"
- Wolfe household
- Nero Wolfe – the detective
- Archie Goodwin – Wolfe's assistant (and the narrator of all Wolfe stories)
- BPR people present at the Waldorf Astoria, site of Cheney Boone's murder
- Cheney Boone – Director of the BPR, victim
- Solomon Dexter – Deputy Directory of the BPR, and Acting Director after Cheney Boone's death
- Phoebe Gunther – Boone's second in command at the BPR in all but title
- Alger Kates – an accountant at the BPR office in NYC who lends Phoebe Gunther his apartment during her stay in NYC (the novel tells about an acute post-war housing and hotel room shortage)
- Mrs Boone – Widow of Cheney Boone. She and her niece Nina are staying at the Waldorf Astoria during the investigation.
- Law Enforcement
- NYPD
- Hombert – NY Police Commissioner; also appears in other Wolfe novels
- Inspector Ash – In the course of the investigation, Inspector Cramer, head of the Manhattan Homicide Squad during most of the Wolfe stories, manages to offend enough important people to get relieved of duty; Inspector Ash, Captain in Queens, is brought in in his place, causing a major confrontation with Wolfe
- County officials
- Skinner – Manhattan District Attorney, also a veteran of other Wolfe novels
- NYPD
- NIA
- Hattie Harding – director of PR for the NIA, and naturally having an extremely bad week. All trim, physically capable, all the other characters dismiss her as a dedicated PR functionary, and dedicated PR functionaries don't as a rule go out and cause bad publicity.
- General Erskine – A man recently discharged from a senior Pentagon position and now prominent member of the NIA's Executive Committee
- Don O'Neill – NIA's chairman of the dinner committee for the affair at which Boone was murdered. He takes in intense interest in the affair, well beyond that of other members of the NIA Executive Committee
- John Smith – During the investigation, an anonymous well-dressed man visits Wolfe late one night and suggests that it wouldn't be a bad thing to simply pin the murder on O'Neill, for which Wolfe would be handsomely rewarded without bothering to inform the IRS.
[edit] Adaptations
The Silent Speaker was adapted for the second season of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001–2002).
- Nero Wolfe: Silent Speaker (Hollywood Reporter)
[edit] References
- ^ Little reliable information is maintained on this organization, organized by FDR to (according to some) simply to promote the war effort, or to counteract Nazi activities such as anti-Semitism
- ^ Archie's attraction to Phoebe Gunther goes well beyond the sullied purview of gossip columnists, and up into the stratosphere of the world's most intelligent and desirable women
