The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout

 

(pb; 1935: second book in the forty-six-book Nero Wolfe detective series)

From the back cover

“Paul Chapin’s college cronies never quite forgave themselves for instigating the tragic prank that left their friend a twisted cripple. Yet with their hazing days at Harvard far behind them, they had every reason to believe that Paul himself had forgiven them—until a class reunion ends in fatal fall, and the poems swearing deadly retribution begin to arrive. Now this league of frightened men is desperate for Nero Wolfe’s help. But are Wolfe’s brilliance and Archie’s tenacity enough to outwit a killer so cunning he can plot and execute in plain sight?”

 

Review

The second Nero Wolfe mystery finds the titular detective and his man-about-city assistant Archie Goodwin trying to figure out how murder-book author and poet Paul Chapin—who by most indications seems to be bumping off those who inadvertently wronged him a long time ago—committed the crimes. However, as with most effective and entertaining whodunnit (with Wolfe cases, howdunnit) works, situations and people are not what they always seem.

Stout’s mystery-atypical story setup is not unlike that of the first novel, Fer-de-Lance, with Archie having to wangle and compel Wolfe into setting aside his comfortable schedule to solve the recent succession of small-group killings, with a probable key villain who seems to mock them at every step—and once Archie’s efforts are rewarded, barbed humor gives way to reader-gripping curiosity, brief instances of danger and alarm, as well as sense of things tumbling rapidly into a satisfying and memorable story resolution. This time, though, Chapin is an especially memorable black-hat character, and Wolfe’s mercenary underpinnings—startling in Fer-de-Lance—are more apparent early on, making League one of my favorite Wolfe reads thus far. Followed by The Rubber Band.

 

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League has been filmed at least once, notably by Columbia Pictures in 1937, with Walter Connolly playing the portly Wolfe and Lionel Stander embodying the sarcastic Archie Goodwin.