Twenty-five years ago, a group of Harvard students pulled a “prank” on underclassman Paul Chapin that went wrong and permanently damaged his leg. Some students became friends with Paul, and the more guilt-stricken ones formed a “League of Atonement”. Now, Paul is a successful novelist who writes stories that may be violent revenge fantasies. Or are they just fantasies? Two members of the League have died recently, and an anonymous writer has sent threats to the remainder of the League. When league member Andrew Hibbard disappears, his daughter requests help from Nero Wolfe. Wolfe decides he can reel in a whole shoal of fish rather than only one by cutting a deal with the entire League to “remove their apprehension” – and the hunt begins.
This is my first time reviewing a Rex Stout novel. From paying attention to other blogs, it seems like opinions vary widely. Some people are big fans, others just don’t get along with them.
One reason why that might be is the unusual focus the books have – or at least this book does. We’re not presented with a standard whodunnit here. The mystery format it might be closest to is a “howcatchem” – we know the target but it seems impossible to pin them down. But that’s not quite everything, either. Based on this and on my previously reading Fer-de-lance, Wolfe and Archie wrangling their clients is a big part of the books.
One common tactic in a mystery novel is for the detective to do something impressive near the beginning, to really sell you on their skills. The skill that Nero Wolfe displays is in doing deals. Early on, he states what he needs and works for, which is money. The vanished Andrew Hibbard’s daughter offers him a good amount, but that’s not enough – Wolfe calls the entire League to his office and essentially gambles on them, cutting a no-win, no-fee kind of deal. This is the opening set-piece: not a clever deduction, but a canny and bold piece of manipulation.
Whether or not Wolfe gets to claim his fee is a big part of the denouement, and it links up in a clever way to how Wolfe chooses to explain the mysteries.
It’s not all good news for the unusual structure. Wolfe’s investigative goals are non-standard and naturally he never tells assistant Archie anything (at least until the plot needs a mini-reveal to add interest). For the whole middle section of the book, our viewpoint character Archie – and half the people he talks to – are frustrated by the lack of progress in the investigation. I get that it’s supposed to seem impossible to catch the villain. Archie is frustrated and bored; so was I. As an act of literary telepathy, this middle section is a great success. But the wisdom of boring and frustrating your readers seems dubious to me.
Occasionally some minor twist would happen, but far too infrequently for the length of the chapters. The only scenes that really picked the story out of the doldrums were the ones where Paul Chapin showed up.
The whole intro to the story and the whole frustrating middle section are meant to build up how scary this guy is. Scenes dramatically spike in tension when he appears, as the characters – and the reader – have no idea what he will do. Wolfe (and therefore Rex Stout) devotes a lot of pages to considering the personality of this man and what he’s capable of. He’s by far the most interesting and developed character of the book, despite (because of?) being difficult to pin down. No other character gets anything close to this much attention (aside from Wolfe and Archie of course).
There are moments when Stout is clearly trying with other characters, but I found these didn’t work so well. One character was almost cartoonishly weird, another one let the reader know her depths of character by making a long speech about it.
Speaking of characters – if there’s one thing devotees of the series never fail to praise, it’s Archie Goodwin’s narration. For me – I don’t quite get on with it. I find it hard to follow at times. I feel there are gaps written in to it that I can’t fill. It might be controversial to suggest it could be an Atlantic Ocean-based split going on here, but judging by which bloggers are pro- or anti- this aspect there’s a decent amount of anecdotal evidence.
However – all my complaints about this book last until about the final third hits. At this point Wolfe picks up on something Archie said 23 pages earlier and things begin to happen! A mystery is resolved, and an actual genuine investigation begins, only about two-thirds of the way through the book. And it’s a really good investigation. There’s twists, danger for Archie, some good clues, and a lot of quick thinking on Archie’s part. Whether I was used to it by this point or whether it was because Archie was actually doing stuff, I enjoyed his narration. It all winds up as I mentioned earlier, with a return of the League and a bargaining session with some surprises. It might be worth the price of admission alone.
If you’d asked me my thoughts at page 100 of this book they would have been broadly negative. But having read the ending, I almost want to recommend it. The problems with its pacing are pretty dire, though. I will return to Rex Stout’s work again for certain – and hope that he’s figured out a way to bridge a good hook of an opening and a satisfying payoff with a meaningful middle section, instead of a repetitive and frustrating one.
Other opinions:
The Irresponsible Reader
Mystery File
Only Detect
Tipping My Fedora – spoiler-y summary