Death of a Doxy

I find it interesting that, as I come to the last few Wolfe books that Stout wrote, instead of descending ever farther into formula, I find them full of new and fresh ideas. While there are certainly still aspects of the formula that has made the series so popular, there are also differences that really intrigue. Having read 42 of these books, it would be easy at this time to become tired of them, but instead I find them more readable than ever.

I'm a Rex Stout fan. I've been reading Nero Wolfe since I was 15. Death of Doxy is one of my favorites.

Rex Stout was a genius at defining characters through their interactions with others. He never left his main characters with simple shallow stereotypes. Nero Wolfe is a misogynist, but in this book, he shows respect for a showgirl of all women. His treatment of her is entirely within his character. A lesser author would have made his hatred of women be a badge, not a a part of the whole. Not a thing that had reason and cracks.

Its a great novel. But I love it because of the relationship that develops between Wolfe and the showgirl.

Rex Stout created crime-solver Nero Wolfe back in a time when crime-solving characters apparently had to be quirky. So Wolfe is a diva, an imperious stay-at-home with a granite-firm daily schedule, unbreakable habits, a Falstaffian appetite, and a tight knit team to do his bidding. In [Death of a Doxy], Wolfe unleashes his team to find and expose the killer of a kept woman. Urgency drives the story, since the prime suspect, the victim's last known visitor, is an occasional colleague. Two parties resist: the family of the adulterer and the family of the adulteress. But Wolfe and his colleagues prevail.

This isn't the Wolfe novel you want to start with, since some familiarity with the supporting cast (I'm not sure why I'm trying to avoid spoilers for a fifty year old novel, but I am) really helps get you into it, but it is a good, solid late-series Wolfe story.

This has the great Wolfe and Archie interactions I love. It also has Julie Jacquette, one of my favorite one-book characters; she's cynical about romance, largely uninteretested in Archie, and impresses the shit out of Wolfe.

A good read, but only for those already familiar with the series.

This is another case in the Rex Stout’s fantastic mystery series featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Breaking one of his cardinal rules of not accepting a case when he doesn’t have a paying client, Wolfe takes on the case of a murdered mistress found dead in her flat because Orrie Cather, one of Wolfe’s action men, is under suspicion (and under arrest). There are plenty of suspicious characters in the picture, from the mystery lover who paid her bills to her condemning, “respectable” sister. Yet, when signs begin to point in one direction, an opportunity for a paying client arises, making the mystery a harder knot to untangle if Wolfe wants to receive his fee.

One reason I really like Rex Stout’s books is the show more characters. Nero Wolfe is a larger-than-life misogynistic genius who can only function on a schedule or risk getting indigestion from getting upset at meals. Archie Goodwin is the wise-cracking optimist who retains his good humor in all situations. In Death of a Doxy, the minor characters also get a chance to shine: Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin and Inspector Cramer are all in good form.

If you’ve read Rex Stout, you’ll like Death of a Doxy; if you’re thinking about reading one, this is as good a place to start as any. show less

Although I have probably read at least a dozen Nero Wolfe novels, I was still in my mid-twenties the last time I read one of them. And that was a long time ago, a very long time ago. So when I started reading Death of a Doxy (written in 1966), I thought I knew pretty much what to expect from Mr. Stout. But (perhaps because this is one of the later Wolfe novels), it holds up surprisingly well and delivers a good bit more than I was expecting from it.

My copy of Death of a Doxy is a 1972 seventh reprinting of the book’s original paperback edition. The little plot summary on the first page of the book captures both the basic premise of the mystery and the tone of the times:

“Poor Orrie Cather. He was being held for a murder he swore he show more hadn’t committed. Poor Avery Ballou. He’d been paying the rent of the victim’s apartment and if anyone found out, Orried’d be free and Ballou would be suspect #1. But most of all, poor Isabel Kerr. She was so young, so beautiful, so stone-cold dead.

Then, of course, there was poor Nero Wolfe. Orrie was a friend, Balllou was his client, and the real murderer was playing hard-to-get….”

As for as teasers go, that’s a pretty good one. The only quibble I have with it, and it’s a minor one, is that Ballou only even became a provisional client of Wolfe’s very near the end of the book – and only if taking him own did not at all interfere with Wolfe’s determination to clear Orrie Cather’s name with the police. But this little book (155 pages) is much more complicated than the blurb makes it sound.

Once again, the rather large and set-in-his-ways Nero Wolfe stays at home and dispatches his minions, led by right-hand man Archie Goodwin, to do all the leg work and to haul witnesses and suspects back to the Wolfe residence on New York’s 35th street as required to move the investigation along. This time, however, Wolfe is one minion short because Mr. Cather spends the entire novel in police custody. But Wolfe and the available boys are still well up to their task.

Isabel Kerr was a doxy, a kept woman, and there is no way she was able to pay the $300 monthly rent of the luxury apartment in which the body of this ex-showgirl was found. All the police have to work with is Isabel’s diary, but there is evidently enough in it to tell them that she was pressuring Wolfe’s friend into marrying her and not his fiancé – the woman he preferred to marry. Orrie Cather, however, is not a man with enough money to be the Isabel’s sugar daddy - and that man’s life would be ruined if he were somehow connected to the dead woman. Was he desperate enough, or angry enough, to be her killer?

Now it’s up to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin to figure out a way to solve the murder that will earn them the conditional $50,000 fee they have been promised. Depending on how it all works out, Death of a Doxy is a case that Wolfe will solve for free or for $50,000 – and that’s a heck of a big difference in 1966. show less

Doxy: A woman who cohabits with an important man. Syn: concubine, courtesan, paramour

Isabel Kerr lived a luxurious life paid for by someone with a lot of money. Someone didn't like the idea and put an end to it. What brought Nero Wolfe and Archie into the case was the arrest of Orrie Cather, one of their assistants. Orrie had made the mistake of being a frequent visitor to Isabel's.

An interesting cast of characters who all tie back to Isabel on some level, yet know hardly anything about each other: a sister and brother-in-law, the rich man footing the bills, Isabel's best friend - a showgirl who isn't afraid to say what she thinks and isn't afraid of Nero Wolfe, a police captain looking to solve the case but can't come up with any show more definite evidence, and blackmail all combine to provide a tight and tangled tale of murder. show less