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Title: Too Many Clients
Series:
Nero Wolfe #34
Author: Rex Stout
Rating:
4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages:
156
Words: 57K
Quite enjoyable. Wolfe doesn’t want to work but Archie realizes he needs an injection of cash. Archie gets a case and it escalates dramatically, from a simple shadowing job to discovering a murder to yet another murder. Wolfe solves the cases in such a way as to not piss off too many people, still keep his word and more importantly, get the fat paycheck at the end.
This was a seamy story about a married man who had a secret love nest where he carried out his many assignations with his many mistresses. But unlike last week’s Faust by Turgenev, which left me feeling ill to my stomach, Rex Stout writes about this subject in such a way as to not titillate, not dirty the reader nor does he make it seem “well, that’s just how it is”. The guy deserved to die. But even better, the guy who killed him did so not out of any sense of outraged justice, but out of base motive for advancement in the company they both worked at/co-owned/whatever. One scumbag killing off another, and he proceeds to commit suicide when Wolfe gives him the alternative of dragging everything out into the public light of a court case. So two scum bags dead, dead, dead. I’m a big fan of that.
I just like Rex Stout’s writing.
★★★★☆
From Wikipedia
A man who identifies himself as Thomas Yeager, head of Continental Plastics, asks Archie to ascertain whether he is being followed when he visits a certain address in one of New York's worst neighborhoods. When the real Yeager's body is found at an excavation site in the vicinity of that address, Archie crosses the threshold and finds a fantastically appointed love nest where Yeager secretly entertained many women. The case becomes more complicated when the daughter of the building superintendent is later killed; her novice attempts at blackmail provide Wolfe with critical evidence needed to solve both murders and earn a large fee, shoring up his low bank account balance.
In short order, Wolfe and Archie find themselves beset by prospective clients:
the Yeager imposter, who allows himself to briefly be thought of as a client and who sparks Archie's interest
the building superintendent and his wife, who want Archie to keep the police from harassing them (and, later, to catch their daughter's killer)
an actress, who offers to pay Archie to get her cigarette case out of the love nest
the directors of Continental Plastics, who want to keep the existence of that room from becoming public knowledge and causing a scandal
Yeager's widow, who expects Wolfe to solve her husband's murder even if it embarrasses the company
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