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Murder by the Book is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout published in 1951 by the Viking Press, and collected in the omnibus volume Royal Flush (1965).
[edit] Plot summary
Because the New York police have written the case off as an accident, a Peoria businessman asks Wolfe to investigate the hit-and-run death of his daughter, a reader for a book publishing company, in Van Cortlandt Park. Wolfe connects her death to a list of names he was recently shown by Inspector Cramer, related to a stalled homicide investigation — and concludes there is a second murder. A third murder validates Wolfe's conclusion, and Archie follows the trail of an unpublished novel to California and back.
[edit] Reviews and commentary
- Stuart M. Kaminsky — I am a huge Stout fan. I've got a collection of the Wolfe novels and re-read them. I just finished reading Murder by the Book, definitely one of my favorites in the series. Check Stout's scenes of Archie in Los Angeles. They rank right up there with Chandler, and the characters — major and minor — are vivid and memorable, not to mention the great give-and-take between Wolfe and Archie. [1]
- Nancy Pearl, Book Lust — When Stout is on top of his game, which is most of the time, his diabolically clever plotting and his storytelling ability exceed that of any other mystery writer you can name, including Agatha Christie, who invented her own eccentric genius detective Hercule Poirot. Although in the years since Stout's death I find myself going back and rereading his entire oeuvre every year or two, I return with particular pleasure to these five novels: The Doorbell Rang; Plot It Yourself; Murder by the Book; Champagne for One; and Gambit.[2]
[edit] Adaptations
[edit] Nero Wolfe (Paramount Television)
Murder by the Book was adapted as the eighth episode of Nero Wolfe (1981), an NBC TV series starring William Conrad as Nero Wolfe and Lee Horsley as Archie Goodwin. Other members of the regular cast include George Voskovec (Fritz Brenner), Robert Coote (Theodore Horstmann), George Wyner (Saul Panzer) and Allan Miller (Inspector Cramer). Guest stars include Walter Brooke (George [Frederick] Briggs), Delta Burke (Jean Wellmann), Ed Gilbert (Robert [Emmett] Phelps), David Hedison (Phillip [James] Corrigan) and John Randolph (Ryan [Conroy] O'Malley). Directed by Bob Kelljan from a teleplay by Wallace Ware (David Karp), "Murder by the Book" aired March 13, 1981.
[edit] External links
[edit] Release details
- 2006, USA, The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters ISBN 1572705361 June 28, 2006, audio CD (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
- 1995, USA, Bantam ISBN 0553763113 September 1, 1995, paperback
[edit] References
- ^ Pierce, J. Kingston, "Murder Is His Business". Stuart M. Kaminsky interviewed in January Magazine, 2002
- ^ Pearl, Nancy, Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason (Seattle, Washington: Sasquatch Books, 2003, ISBN 1570613818); p. 226
