The Doorbell Rang

[dxmachina]

It's been quite a few years since I last read one of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books. I have lots of them, and to be honest, they all tend to blur together. I suspect a lot of that is because the characters don't age between books. As in so many old TV series, milestones that permanently change the universe surrounding on West 35th Street are few and far between. Apart from books such as Some Buried Caesar, where Archie meets Lily, or The Black Mountain, things stay pretty much same in Wolfe's brownstone for forty years or more. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I rarely remember the details of any particular mystery, so when I go back to reread one it's like having a brand new book all over again. It's literary comfort food—quick reads about people you enjoy reading about. Plus, they fight crime.

Still, there are a few that don't blend into the pack. The Doorbell Rang is one such because it involves Wolfe with real-life people and events. The person is J. Edgar Hoover, and the event is the publication of a book in 1964 called The FBI Nobody Knows, an expose of the FBI's shenanigans under Hoover. Wolfe's client is a rich woman who is so incensed by the book she buys a thousand copies and mails them to every congressman, editor, and pundit she can think of. Naturally, the FBI decides she's dangerous, and starts following her about. Wolfe's job is to make them stop.

It's different from the usual Wolfe book. It's the only one I can recall that impinges on the real world (and I sort of wonder about Stout's sanity in doing it). There's even a throwaway line where Archie mentions that a witness having a Beatle-like haircut. It's much more of a caper than the usual Wolfe mystery. There does turn out to be a murder that needs solving, but it's taken care of rather quickly, and really isn't the point of the whole exercise. It's about tweaking the tail of a megalomaniac.

It is fun to visit with old friends. I've missed hanging out with Archie. Fortunately, I still have a whole shelf full of books I haven't read in awhile.

Comments

[jesseh.livejournal.com]

I re-read that one recently, too! But didn't realize the book was real. Huh. And you're right about the sanity -- was Stout living abroad? (Heh.)

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

It was. I looked it up because I wondered what would've prompted Stout to go out on that limb if it hadn't existed.

(And upon further Googling, I discover that he once ignored a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee, despite being a rabid anti-communist. Good for him.)

[jesseh.livejournal.com]

That's fantastic. I knew there was something I liked about Rex Stout.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Not the only one that impinges - the ones dealing, in various forms, with Balkan politics all do, as well. The Black Mountain, Over My Dead Body - those do.

In fact, the wealthy patricians with the Bosnian forestry agreements with the Nazis, father and son, in OMDB? I know a couple of people who think they were modelled on Prescott Bush.

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever read OMDB. I have read TBM, but just didn't know enough about the politics to know one way or the other.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Read OMDB with the Bush family in mind. You'll find all the hair on the back of your neck prickling.