Curtains for Three by Rex Stout

Curtains for Three by Rex Stout

The thing I like most about Rex Stout’s collections of novellas is that you can easily read each story in one sitting. No chance to forget a key detail. You digest the story as you go and hopefully come up with the villain before Nero Wolfe tells you who it is. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t guess the villains this time, but I felt like I should have which is a credit to Stout’s writing.

 

My favorite of the three was the first in which a woman and her lover find her husband’s body after he’s committed suicide—except, maybe it wasn’t suicide. Maybe one of them did it. And they have to know the truth before they go ahead and marry each other. The problem? The gun that was lying by her husband’s side when they brought the police in wasn’t there when they discovered the body. So, who moved the gun?

 

What makes this novella so much fun is what happens after Nero Wolfe proves who moved the gun, and of course, his solution to the crime is absolutely outstanding.

 

The other stories are also a lot of fun, but didn’t stand out to me as strongly as the first.