Double for Death

I have been waiting for the Nero Wolfe series to be available for Kindle, it seems like forever. I'm not as big a fan of Tecumseh Fox as Nero Wolfe, but a Rex Stout mystery is a Rex Stout mystery. I'm glad I purchased and read this book. It's a solid mystery with a good ending. I would expect that from Rex Stout. What I didn't expect, and really enjoyed, was the glimpses of Wolfe and Archie I got in Fox's personality. I found myself thinking, Wolfe would have said that or Archie would have done that. If another Fox book becomes available, I will definitely buy it. In the meantime, I am reading and loving "Over My Dead Body" featuring Wolfe and Archie.

I love Rex Stout. He wrote the best mysteries, bar none, ever written: the Nero Wolfe series. They crackle with wit and originality, and the plots are beautiful little puzzle-boxes of logic. What Wodehouse was to the comic novel, Stout was to the mystery. Stout himself felt that his best-plotted novel was this one. Featuring Tecumseh Fox, it's longer than most of the Nero Wolfes, and (for me, anyway), not as much fun by a long shot. It's still enjoyable, but should not be put before the dozens of novels and short stories featuring that "mere genius" Wolfe. I won't be rereading this one-- but look forward to the passage of a decade so I can begin rereading all the Wolfe canon with a fresh palate....

_Double for Death_ is the first of the Tecumseh Fox mysteries. Tecumseh Fox is a detective of an entirely different breed than Nero Wolfe. The opposite of fastidious and antisocial Wolfe, his farm is a collection of oddballs and drifters and Fox is famous for his inability to turn anybody away. While as smooth and cool in deduction as Wolfe, Fox's weakest links are his less-than-perfect lieutenants. In _Double For Death_ we have a corpse that may or may not be who it appears to be, a girl who keeps being revealed as a liar only to be found to be telling the truth, a detective with a disregard for the finer points of due process, and a man who has many reasons to be murdered. Fox needs to sort the strange double death of the murder victim and find the identity of the killer. Stout considered this his best detective novel, and who am I to argue with the great man himself?

In this book Stout presents his other notable character besides Nero Wolfe: Tecumseh Fox, a self-made man who is quite a benefactor for a detective. Double for Death does not quite match the well-balanced rhythm and urban atmosphere of his better known Wolfe series. This book underlines a little bit too much how its plot relies on the nuances of the English language. The solution is obvious if the reader happens to have an eye for spellathlons; if not, too bad. Still, the story is readable, and definitely a must for any serious Stout fan just in order to help appreciate the discreetly designed Wolfe-Goodwin setup in most of his books.