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Title: Death of a Dude
Series:
Nero Wolfe #44
Author: Rex Stout
Rating:
4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages:
151
Words: 59K
Publish: 1969
This was nearly the biggest adventure mystery yet! Wolfe ends up going out west (to Montana) to take over an investigation that threatens to keep Archie occupied for several weeks or even months. Wolfe is highly motivated to wrap things up and he calls in favors to get himself on the case and whammo, things start really moving along.
These are still good stories but the background stuff just isn’t for me. I’ve mentioned this before, but once things moved past the 50’s, I stopped enjoying the background. I hadn’t realized how much enjoyment I was getting from that until it has stopped. It’s not that the background is suddenly bad, it’s just not interesting to me any more. I only have a couple more books until the series wraps up, so I can hang in. At least I hope so!
★★★★☆
From Grokipedia
The novel opens with Archie Goodwin vacationing at Lily Rowan's Bar JR Ranch in Lame Horse, Montana, where he becomes embroiled in a murder investigation after Philip Brodell, a wealthy visitor from St. Louis staying at a neighboring ranch, is found shot twice in the back while picking huckleberries.[6][7] The local authorities quickly arrest Harvey Greve, the ranch manager, on suspicion of the crime due to a clear motive—Brodell had seduced and impregnated Greve's eighteen-year-old daughter Alma the previous year, prompting Greve to threaten revenge—but Archie remains convinced of Greve's innocence, noting that Greve is an expert marksman who would not shoot an unarmed man in the back and that the shooting appears amateurish.[6] Sheriff Morley Haight, who harbors a personal grudge against Greve, conducts a superficial investigation and focuses almost exclusively on him, dismissing other possibilities and displaying hostility toward outsiders like Archie who question the case.[6]Unable to make headway with the distrustful locals and unwilling to abandon Greve, Archie writes to Nero Wolfe that he will remain in Montana indefinitely to clear the accused man, prompting Wolfe—irritated by the disruption to his routine—to use political connections for initial research before taking the rare step of traveling to Montana himself.[2] Wolfe arrives and stays at Lily Rowan's ranch alongside other guests, including actress Diana Kadany and author Wade Worthy, who is researching a biography of Lily's father.[6] With the help of county attorney Thomas Jessup, who is skeptical of Haight's work and rivals him politically, Wolfe secures official status as a public investigator for himself and Archie, granting them greater access to witnesses and forcing the locals to cooperate.[6]The investigation reveals tensions at Brodell's ranch and points to cowhand Sam Peacock as someone withholding key information, but efforts to question him are thwarted by Sheriff Haight at a local dance.[6] Soon after, Peacock's body is discovered hidden in Wolfe and Archie's car, bludgeoned to death with a rock to the head, leading Haight to briefly jail Archie while placing Wolfe under house arrest.[7] Wolfe then dispatches operative Saul Panzer to St. Louis to probe Brodell's background and potential connections to the ranch's out-of-town guests.[6]Panzer's research uncovers that Wade Worthy is actually Carl Yaeger, a fugitive wanted for strangling a young woman in St. Louis with a belt; Brodell had recognized Yaeger during his stay and threatened to expose him, providing Yaeger with a motive to shoot Brodell in order to silence the threat.[7] Yaeger then killed Peacock after learning that Brodell had confided the secret to him, eliminating the additional witness.[7] Wolfe reveals this identification to the household guests and subtly suggests that Lily Rowan and Diana Kadany go fishing, prompting Yaeger to panic and flee the ranch.[6]As planned by Wolfe in coordination with Jessup and state police, Yaeger is apprehended by highway patrol away from the ranch to avoid embarrassing Lily Rowan with an on-site arrest and to publicly humiliate Sheriff Haight for his biased and incompetent handling of the case.[6] Harvey Greve is exonerated and released, and Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin return to New York, with Wolfe briefly experiencing the discomforts of rural Montana during his stay.
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