Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout
Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout
Wow! Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries just keep getting better and better. This one starts with a car crash in which Wolfe and Archie wreck their vehicle in the middle of the countryside. Wolfe has decided to enter some of his orchids in a competition at a fair in order to get the better of a rival orchid grower. He decides against waiting in the wrecked car while Archie goes for help and so the two start across a field toward a nearby farmhouse. That’s when they encounter Caesar, a gigantic bull who is totally opposed to sharing his field with them. And the story just gets better from there. In fact, we were many chapters in before the murder that will dominate the novel even occurs and the action and the dialogue and the tension between the various groups who will become the murder suspects was so engaging that I didn’t even realize the real plot hadn’t started yet. Stout had pulled me in and I loved every page of it.
Then the murder happens and the temperature gets turned up even hotter. Unlike the last time that we saw Wolfe out of his brownstone, he actually appears willing to seek out employment. It turns out (not known until later in the novel) that this is because he has already figured out all the particulars of the case within half an hour of the killing. But Wolfe in his arrogance makes one tiny mistake that turns an easy solution into a serious problem that may be beyond even his abilities to redeem.
About two thirds of the way through the story, Stout very subtly drops a clue that provides the thread that lets the reader figure out what Wolfe has known since the murder was committed. Now I often say in these reviews that I figured out who the killer was. This time, I not only used that clue to figure out the murderer, but I even figured out all the particulars of the how and why the crime was committed. What I didn’t figure out until way toward the end, was how Wolfe was going to prove it.
This is another absolutely wonderful Nero Wolfe mystery. It has the added benefit of introducing Lily Rowan who will appear in a great many future novels. If you like Nero Wolfe stories, or have been thinking of trying one, this is a must read.
