Not Quite Dead Enough (Nero Wolfe Mysteries) [Mass Market Paperback]

Both stories herein were written and set within the early years of the United States' participation in WWII; see TROUBLE IN TRIPLICATE for later stories. Saul, Fred, and Orrie were overseas and out of the stories for the duration of the war. Archie joined up, but was assigned to Army Intelligence on the home front for the duration. (He tried more than once to get a combat assignment and got nowhere - as it is, he's paid about 1/3 his old salary, has the disadvantages of being in the Army, and Wolfe uses his Army loyalties as an excuse to withhold even more information than usual.)

As for Wolfe, Fritz, and Theodore...

"Not Quite Dead Enough" - March 1942. Archie's now Major Goodwin - very good, since he's been in the Army for only 2 months, and the idea of Army discipline...well, Archie refers to snapping to one's feet and so forth in the presence of a general as 'Rocketteing'. After clearing up 'that mess down in Georgia' (an unrecorded case of his own for Army Intelligence), his superior calls him in to ask why Wolfe hasn't cooperated when asked to work for Army Intelligence. Archie confidently assumes that the Army just mishandled Wolfe, and that he's sunk deep in his normal rut.

When he gets home and finds the office dusty, he's sure Fritz or Wolfe must be dead - it's just a question of which; on finding dust in the *kitchen* is dusty and health food in the refrigerator (!), he's sure they're *both* dead. But Theodore says no, they're in training to join the Army. Archie, after attempting to make Wolfe see reason, starts scuffling around for a case to jump-start Wolfe's brain - and when he finds one, deliberately sinks *himself* in it up to the neck.

Lily Rowan has a major role; she's much more visibly attached to Archie than in later books. (To fully appreciate all the by-play with Lily, read SOME BURIED CAESAR.) She's been trying to get Wolfe to take on a job for a friend, but he wouldn't see her. Archie takes an interest, but the friend is a good-looking young woman, so Lily isn't quite so keen on Archie getting involved. (The friend lives in an apartment building full of eccentrics - old ladies who feud because one feeds squirrels and the other fancies pigeons; a 4F young man who raises racing pigeons...)

"Booby Trap" - August 1943. Captain Albert Cross was found dead on the pavement beneath his hotel room window - an obvious murder: he was due to make a report to the group of intelligence people Wolfe works with. (Of the local group, only General Fife is regular Army - Colonel Ryder was a Cleveland lawyer, Tinkham a bank security officer - and he has no inclination to sooth feathers ruffled by Wolfe's manner. Fife, in turn, reports to General Carpenter.)

Cramer hates the national security crud involved - a reaction consistent with his occasional clashes with the FBI in later years - and with good reason: the Army can't give the police all the facts. Intelligence has been made aware of an anonymous letter alleging that various unpatented, uncopyrighted trade secrets / industrial processes have been made available to the government to support the war, and that somebody's selling them to unscrupulous companies seeking post-war advantage. (Nondisclosure agreements, and lack thereof, are not a new problem under the sun.) It's hard to prove, since the profit motive can't be established until it's too late.

Cross had been investigating the theft of some samples of a new type of grenade. Archie and Wolfe, after using Cross' notes to recover the grenades, are working on who killed Cross and why. Wolfe won't let Archie keep one grenade as a trophy - and after Archie returns it, someone employs it to set a booby trap for another member of the group. Wolfe himself lays a trap to catch Ryder's murderer.

Most of the intelligence characters were mentioned in the preceding story but did not appear. Shattuck, a Congressional committee chairman, is in on this because when he received an anonymous letter, he brought it to his old friend Colonel Ryder rather than the FBI. (Shattuck was godfather to Ryder's only son, who was killed in action a few weeks before the story opens.) After a pointed remark from one of the G2 types asking where's the media, Shattuck just as pointedly says it would be good if Capitol Hill took over the armed forces for a month - "Good God!" - and vice versa, since everybody would learn something.

Wolfe's patriotism, as usual, is understated but apparent. There's no black market stuff at the brownstone (at least, not until after the war is over, in a story in another collection). He's willing to travel, and even miss orchid sessions if necessary, for the sake of his adopted country. Lastly, during the war, Wolfe takes only Army Intelligence work, not the high-paying private stuff.

Both stories, of course, are period pieces, reflecting in various small details that they're contemporary with the setting. We don't just see references to rationing and the black market, but little things: Archie making a crack about politicians trying to imitate Churchill's voice after his address to Congress; General Fife trying to imitate Eisenhower's mannerisms; Wolfe's reaction to meeting a WAC.

Stout's genius expresses itself in many ways. One such way must surely be that everyone 'knows' that Nero Wolfe never leaves his New York brownstone; the author thereby making life hugely more difficult for himself by dint of his protagonist never being able to visit the scene of the crime. Well in both the stories in this volume - as frankly in a significant number of the others as well - he does indeed leave home, and in the second mystery, Booby Trap, it is precisely his visit to the location of the murder that gives him the vital clue.

Notwithstanding all that, this is fine stuff, full of the usual well drawn characters and (mostly) finely plotted twists and turns. I say mostly because Lily Rowan's actions in the first story are completely implausible, but somehow Stout manages to make the reader overlook that until one has read as quickly as possible thorugh to the conclusion.

Enjoyable although for a 'serious' reader, much too short. I finished this in a day without any problem - partly because of it's length (short) and because it's so easy to read!