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Homicide Trinity-First Edition
Homicide Trinity-First Edition

SYNOPSIS:
On the reverse of this jacket you will find the bill of fare for this three-course feast of murder, mystification, and masterful deduction. As his large and loyal Society will attest, Rex Stout's famous threesomes are fully as delightful as his book-length novels, which is to say that they are peerless examples of mayhem deluxe.

Murder#1. . . "That's the gun I'm not going to shoot my husband with," said the pretty lady, handing a revolver to Archie.  But her husband was already dead, shot with an identical gun . . .

Murder#2 . . . Fighting three of the smartest lawyers in the business, Nero Wolfe's own soup-stained tie becomes a deadly weapon of murder . . . .

Murder#3 . . . When a cop-hating landlady gives Nero Wolfe $40,000 to make the  police eat dirt, and an actor at liberty takes the liberty of killing, Archie takes matters into his own hands . . . .

Homicide Trinity

three-course feast of murder


QUOTATIONS:

Eeny Meeny Murder Mo: "You are manifestly indomitable and I must buckle my breastplate. I choose to deny that there is any such statement." (p. 34)

Counterfeit for Murder: "Wolfe doesn't flabbergast easy, but that did it." (p. 179)

Death of a Demon: "Wolfe's bellow would stop a tiger ready to spring." (p. 113)


REVIEW:

These three novellas are among Stout's finest. The first involves a prospective client strangled with Wolfe's necktie, the second features two identical guns and a mysterious strongbox, and the third introduces us to Hattie Annis, a crusty, cop-hating landlady who is one of the most vivid of Stout's incidental creations. If possible, read each in one sitting. [goodreads.com]

Eeny Meeny Murder Mo: Great reading, though Wolfe and Archie suffer ignominy: opens when a putative client is strangled, in Wolfe's office, with one of Wolfe's brown and yellow neckties.

Counterfeit for Murder: Contains the wonderful character of Hattie Annis, whom Archie spurns because of a missing button as the story opens, and some hilarious interactions between Wolfe, Cramer, and the Treasury Department. The original, inferior version of this story was published in Death Times Three as Assault on a Brownstone.

See the page about the alternate plots of some novellas.

Death of a Demon: Ho Hum.