The Nine Mile Walk

After the title story came up in conversation once a few months back, my dad insisted that I had to read these stories and brought our copy in from our family archive. Now that I've read them (though I skipped the story he read aloud to the family as "family reading"), I can definitely recommend them; while there are a number of mystery novels and stories that I have on the whole enjoyed, I don't read much in the genre, so I have little basis for comparison. But to my fairly-uneducated palate, they seem to stand in the good company of Doyle and Dick Francis.

Kenelman is probably better known for his Rabbi Small detective novels; I have read several of them but much prefer the NIcky Wwlt short stories. As Kemelman himself says in the introduction, the short story is best suited to the strictly puzzle detective story, and for me as a Gentle academic the basically non-religious academic background of these stories is more agreeable than the Jewish atmosphere of the Small stories, which sometimes involves rather ill-informed Jewish/Christian comparisons. The title story is one of my absolute favorites, I love the concept that a series of rational inferences fro the simple sentence "A nine mile walk is no joke, especially in the main." leads to the solution of a murder.However, after many show more rereadings I've realized that it is very much a set up --beyond the first few inferences, they all depend on the particular fictional geography and even the particular fictional bus and train schedules, so (unlike Kemelman's claim in the introduction) the reader has no fair chance of matching Welt's deductions. They also depend on the "fact" that a nine mile walk would take 4 hours, which I think too long and too exact. For me, even at age 65, I think it would be not much over three hours ( I do 5 km in less than an hour, and 5 km. is over 3 miles) , and for a younger man, even though specified as non-athletic, it should take less. Still, it is a masterpiece of presentation. For the duration of the story, it all seems credible. I also love "The Ten O'clock Scholar" set at a student's Ph.D. orals. It catches the academic atmosphere very well. The others are less academic but still very competent. This is one of the few books of which I own 2 copies of the same pb because I'm afraid I will read one to death. show less

I recommend reading the stories with time in between. I started reading it one story after the other and became bored by the logic puzzle in each and became annoyed by the know-it-all Nicky Welt. I set it down for a while, read something else, came back and read a story, read something else, etc. I liked the stories better that way.

This is a collection of short mystery stories featuring the "arm-chair" detective Nicky Welt and there is also an introduction by Kemelman explaining the origin of the first story about Welt. The original copyrights for these particular ones range from 1947 to 1967 so they tend to have an all male cast. The narrator is the County Attorney for a college town near Boston and a friend and former teacher at the University where Welt teaches. While I spotted the solutions for some of the stories they were enjoyable.

Read just the title story. Couldn't get hold of the other ones. Got this one through mail.

Quick read. Interesting. Not sure if I would agree to the pace much.
But, for a 1947 story in a newspaper column, the pace and things make sense.

Would recommend to everyone since its quite easy to finish.

Indeholder "Forord", "Den lange regnvejrstur", "Stråmanden", "Forsvar for doktorgraden klokken ti", "Slutspil", "Et tidsspørgsmål", "Fløjtekedlen", "Ren rutine", "Manden på stigen".

"Forord" handler om at Kemelman havde skrevet historien om regnvejrsturen og en redaktør ville gerne have længere historier. Løsningen blev rabbiner Small historierne, fordi en krimigåde kunne flettes ind i en fortælling om et lille jødisk samfund og derved bare være en del af historien.
"Den lange regnvejrstur" handler om hvad man kan deducere fra en simpel sætning, som fx "En ni mile lang spadseretur er ingen spøg, især ikke i regnvejr". Fortælleren har overhørt sætningen tidligere på morgenen og Nicky Welt konkluderer at nogen har gået show more midt om natten eller tidligt om morgenen for at nå et tog. Og fortælleren ved at en mand blev fundet myrdet på toget fra Washington til Boston, så han kobler de to oplysninger og politiet kan anholde to mænd.
"Stråmanden" handler om en kidnapning hvor et brev kommer politiet i hænde og det har skørt mange fingeraftryk på. Det peger ifølge Nicky Welt på at en doktor John Regan har forsøgt at få sin bror Philip til at punge ud med nogle penge, som så kunne havne i Johns lomme, eller måske snarere i lommen på en spillehaj, Venuti.
"Forsvar for doktorgraden klokken ti" handler om Claude Bennett. Der er en fejde på fakultetet mellem professor George Korngold og professor Emmett Hawthorne. Claude dukker ikke op til tiden, men er lovligt undskyldt for han er blevet myrdet. En Sterling og en Starr bliver mistænkt af politimanden Delhanty, men Nicky Welt viser at Emmett er den skyldige. Og at nogle papirer, Byington-papirerne, er et falsum. Emmett skyder sig.
"Slutspil" handler om at en oberst Edwards fra Hærens Efterretningstjeneste har sat sig i hovedet at en professor McNulty har begået selvmord, men Nicky Welt viser at en professor Albrecht ikke som påstået har spillet skak med McNulty inden denne skød sig. I stedet har Albrecht skudt McNulty og camoufleret drabet som et selvmord.
"Et tidsspørgsmål" handler om en ung mand med en fedtet onkel. Onklen har en prik med at have præcise ure, så nevøen sætter en lille fælde op, så onklen i mørke snubler over en fold i et tæppe og skvatter ned ad trappen. Senere omkommer nevøen ved et flystyrt, så Welts formodning om et mord får ingen konsekvenser.
"Fløjtekedlen" handler om et torsøg på at hugge en kostbar skål ved at tilegne sig en nøgle til en bagageboks. Det kræver at tyven damper en kuvert op, så Nicky Welt forpurrer tyveriforsøgett og alt ordnes i stilhed. Universitetets nye rektor ville godt have haft lidt mere omtale af universitetet men det fik han ikke sagt i tide.
"Ren rutine" handler om et drab på en 50-årig, Mister John, fordi en gammel kone bliver ængstelig over om hans penge vil gå hendes næse forbi, hvis han gifter sig. Hun får også involveret sin søn, så det ender ret sørgeligt.
"Manden på stigen" handler om et par dødsfald, der begge skyldes en hurtigt tænkende opportunist, professor Dykes, blandt fakultetets lærere. Nicky Welt får politiet til at kigge nærmere på billederne i et kamera, som det seneste offer mr Lesser har haft med op på den stige, som han faldt ned fra. Det viser at Dykes og det første offer Johnny Bowman var tæt på den udgravning, hvor Bowman blev fundet død. Nicky har også regnet ud at Lesser pressede penge af Dykes, men ikke havde forudset at dennes hund kunne bringes til at skubbe ham ned fra stigen ved et signal fra en hundefløjte. Men det sidste mord kan ret sikkert ikke bevises.

Historierne er udmærkede, netop fordi de er så korte at man ikke når at blive træt af formen. Nicky Welt er en typisk lænestolsdetektiv. show less