{"id":144,"date":"2002-07-01T14:46:22","date_gmt":"2002-07-01T18:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=144"},"modified":"2002-07-01T14:46:22","modified_gmt":"2002-07-01T18:46:22","slug":"stout_rex_14_tr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2002\/07\/stout_rex_14_tr\/","title":{"rendered":"Stout, Rex: (14) Trouble in Triplicate"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> <\/a> <\/p>\n

I decided last week that I needed to be reading something that lent itself to small chunks, since during the time I was nominally re-reading Freedom & Necessity<\/cite><\/a>, I was really mostly flipping through old Discover<\/cite> magazines, because Freedom & Necessity<\/cite> was too likely to consume time and energy I didn’t have to spare. None of the anthologies we had at the time looked appealing (or they were, you guessed it, in boxes somewhere), so I thought I’d work my way through the Nero Wolfe collections in order because, well, why not?<\/p>\n

I’d recently read both the first, Black Orchids<\/cite><\/a>, and the second, Not Quite Dead Enough<\/cite><\/a>. Both are two story collections; the next, Trouble in Triplicate<\/cite><\/strong>, sets the pattern for the rest by having three stories and some reference to “three” in the title. (The only exception is And Four to Go<\/cite>.) Later collections sometimes have a theme, which is indicated by their title (for instance, Three Witnesses<\/cite>); this book’s theme is apparently “stories Kate doesn’t like.”<\/p>\n

I began reading the first, “Before I Die,” and partway through said, “Oh look—legal stuff!” (In case anyone is curious: I’m almost certain the legal maneuvering at the end wouldn’t have worked then. It would be much easier to achieve that purpose now, but with a different method.) This is the one where Wolfe gets involved with the Mob because he’s craving meat and there’s a shortage. It was on A&E recently, and I passed up watching it because it’s frankly a silly premise.<\/p>\n

“Help Wanted, Male” was on A&E last night; someone’s out to kill Wolfe and he hires a decoy. It does have Archie in uniform, being the third World War II story (the other two are in Not Quite Dead Enough<\/cite>), but beyond that I think it has little to recommend it, turning on a deeply absurd plot point. (Chad tells me that I missed seeing Fritz trying to look menacing while holding a gun on people, which I admit could have been worth a look.) I’ve never liked this one and still don’t.<\/p>\n

“Instead of Evidence” has a nice subtle, though not very distinctive, title, and that’s about all. I don’t understand the series’ apparent obsession with explosive devices, and the longer I read these, the more annoyed I get at Wolfe’s cavalier attitude towards methods of justice. Also, I refuse to believe Archie could be as stupid as he appears, even for the moment described in the book.<\/p>\n

As Wolfe would say: Pfui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I decided last week that I needed to be reading something that lent itself to small chunks, since during the time I was nominally re-reading Freedom & Necessity, I was really mostly flipping through old Discover magazines, because Freedom & Necessity was too likely to consume time and energy I didn’t have to spare. None … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Stout, Rex: (14) Trouble in Triplicate”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,117],"tags":[400],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mystery","category-nero-wolfe","category-short-fiction","tag-stout-rex"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}