Please Pass the Guilt

This is a twisty and entertaining Nero Wolfe mystery, in which our heroes search for a killer at a Television network. One executive is killed when he secretly visits the office of another executive and set off a bomb planted in that man's desk. Not only do they need to learn who planted the bomb, to do that they need to determine who was really the intended victim. Mix the mystery in with orchids, gourmet dining, and a satisfactory comeuppance for Lieutenant Rowcliffe, and we get a delightful book.

This is kind of a weird one. It's such a late book in the series (first published in 1973) that the attempts to make it contemporary feel very strange - I mean, Stout was around 80 years old at this point, but he's still writing an Archie in his 30s, or maybe early 40s, and it just doesn't jibe as well as it did in the earlier books. The mystery itself is a good one, though.

As much as I love the Nero Wolfe series, this is one of the weaker installments. The premise is good (a bomb kills a TV network vice president; no one knows if he was the intended target), but the usual sense of fun is missing. The main characters don't seem to have much to do here and neither the suspects/witnesses nor the investigation are that memorable. This would have been better as a short story.

A bomb in an office desk explodes, but who is the intended target? Meals in Nero Wolfe's house play a prominent role, but Robert Parker's Spencer books are more appetizing. As another reviewer noted, the book was not as much fun as it should have been.
And there is no discussion of the fact that one of the characters decides that the best way for her husband to become the new head of the company is by lacing his rival's whiskey with LSD.

One of the later mysteries which are usually not my favorites. It begins with Wolfe's reliable ally Doc Vollmer asking a favor for a colleague --a psychiatrist who has a client (who gives an obviously false name) who keeps seeing his hands covered with blood. Wolfe talks to the client and finds he was Kenneth Meers, a junior executive at a tV network, and a senior executive, a rival of his own boss in the upcoming decision on who would be the new head of the company --had blown himself up by opening a drawer in the desk of Meers; own boss's desk --a drawer containing nothing but a bottle of whiskey. Meers walks out after he is identified, but Archie Goodwin persuades the widow of the victim to hire Wolfe to find out who killed her show more husband--a task complicated by the fact that she confesses to Wolfe that her husband had opened that drawer to put LSD in his rival's whiskey to make him look bad in a crucial job interview that was to decide which of them got the top job. (I think Stout was trying too hard to be trendy by using LSD. A simple mickey finn would have made the rival look dopey and stupid, but LSD might produce bizarre hallucinations making it obvious he had been poisoned.) What I disiike about this story is that it is what I call a Hilary Waugh, as the device was used to often by that author--there is an obvious suspect, that suspect is seemingly cleared, and then after a long investigation the original obvious suspect turns out to e guilty after all. show less

The mystery was good but some of the "modern" (1973) language and discussions were not what I expected from a Nero Wolfe book. None of it was offensive to me, just a great surprise.

A well constructed mystery very much in the tradition of Nero Wolfe novels. Rex Stout 's depiction of Detective Wolfe and assistant Archie Goodwin (thru whom the story is narrated) is done perfectly, and the mystery and suspects are introduced and developed thoroughly and concisely. The early 1970's setting also adds interest to this novel.