Death of a Dude (1969)

Not one of the better. Too many characters to keep them all apart and too few clues to give the reader any inkling on what was going on. ( )

Death Of A Dude (1969) (Nero Wolfe #44) by Rex Stout. Mr. Stout must have gone on vacation out to a ranch, probably in Montana or thereabouts, just before he wrote this mystery. Here Archie is on a ranch owned by a friend of his, Lily rowan. A nice place, big house and there are several guests staying there also.
A man, a dude, has been killed. Shot from behind. The local sheriff has pulled in Harvey Greve, foreman at Lily’s Bar JR Ranch. The dead dude had managed to get Harvey’s daughter pregnant the year prior, fled the state and for some reason returned a few days prior to Archie’s arrival.
Thereby has come but Grandpa is in the slammer facing murder charges. Almost everyone believes he did it, he meant to it, but that he’ll get off because of the circumstances. Lily doesn’t think that will happen, talks Archie into investigating, and he ends up stonewalled, just another dude asking questions.
Things look dim until Nero Wolfe arrives. I’d like to say he was kitted out in buckskins and spurs, but you wouldn’t believe it and neither would I. He does wade into the investigation and solve it, but along the way there is another death and Mr. Goodwin ends up in jail.
The only thing missing here is a big “How-dee Pardner” and a spit of tobacco. Mr. Stout is quite liberal in his usage of cowboy terms, but rather than distract, usually, they add to the sense that Archie and the cast are really acting their parts in this rodeo.
I was disappointed with the ending, with the solution. I do not like when the author pulls in information from outside sources to secure the arrest. It feels as if the author didn’t have a great way to end the story, no blazing insights from Wolfe as usual, and settled for a milked down ending.
I do know he’ll do better “his next go round. ( )

While Archie is vacationing with Lily Rowan on her ranch in Montana, he becomes involved in a murder. Wolfe decides to travel to Montana to assist in order to get Archie back to New York more quickly!

While I liked the Montana setting, I felt that the mystery was not as good as I expect from Rex Stout. ( )

Archie is on vacation with his girlfriend Lily Rowan, in Montana, when the murder occurs. The sheriff arrests their friend and the ranch foreman of Lily's ranch, whom they agree is not guilty. But Archie is a dude in the western landscape and the natives don't want to talk to him. Sending Nero Wolfe a letter explaining he won't return as expected, but rather only after he gets Harvey Greve set free whenever that might be however long it may take. So when Nero Wolfe arrives in Montana he sees it as the big break in proving Harvey not guilty he has been seeking. The witness questioning begins WHO had opportunity and MOTIVE.
I never see a clue cross the page, yet I found myself riveted by page after page after page. This was a fun read for me as I haven't read a Nero Wolfe mystery since the 1980s. I never could guess a Nero Wolfe murderer and I still can't. I hadn't realized how much technology and time has affected the mystery story; for example, Archie Goodwin talks about typewriters, airmail and phone tapes. Fifty to sixty years later, we refer to keyboards, email and the NSA. Then again, how little time and technology have affected the murder mystery; the mystery detailed and explained by a central character(s) or detective, the search for clues by the questioning of witnesses and the denouement or explanation given at the end.
I recommend a short step back in time to the 1960s, 1980s to enjoy these classics. ( )

This is one of the last of the Nero Wolfe series, but at this point (unlike Family Affair) Stout was still going strong. Harvey Greve, a cowboy who appeared in another Wolfe story involving a roping contest in Manhattan, is now the manager of Lily Rowan's ranch in Montana, and charged with shooting a young man who had gotten his daughter pregnant the summer before. Archie Goodwin (who is visiting Lily) believes he is innocent but is stymied on finding the real killer, so Wolfe himself comes out to Montana to take the case. Spoilier comment: the killer turns out to be a historian, but to make up for that, there is a really nice old high school history teacher in the story too. ( )