I have the worst book hangover. How does one get past the end of the Lymond Chronicles? Last night me and a couple of friends, whom I've made read Game of Kings, went out and drank, and basically performed an episode of Drunk History about Scotland in the 1500s. But they haven't read the whole series and there are a lot of things I can't yell about yet. Sigh. Makes getting excited about other books hard.
Anyway. This Nero Wolfe collection of short stories was published in 1952, and wow, is it VERY 1952. In the first short story, a family finds out their murdered son was a Communist, but he claimed to have been undercover for the FBI, infiltrating Communists. In the second, Wolfe helps two illegal immigrants escape the police. The immigrants met in a concentration camp in Russia, which is why they don't have papers. And in the third, a man who writes comic books frames Archie for murder. Commies, concentration camps, and comics. You'd guess this was published in the 50s, for sure.
Anyway, I guessed the answer to the first mystery, I really liked the second one (Archie does some spectacular lying) and I loved the conceit of the third, with Archie framed for murder, and Wolfe so angry about it that he sort of loses his mind, briefly. Rex Stout writes a very satisfying short story.
Grade: A
#48 in 2016
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