3.5*
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. ( )

I've read all of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries over and over again, and while I may like some more than others, I don't dislike any of them. Having said that, this has always been one of my very favorites.

Death of a Dude finds Archie Goodwin on vacation in Montana with his paramour Lily Rowan. When a guest at a neighboring dude ranch is found murdered, and Lily's ranch foreman is pegged as the culprit, Archie is duty bound to investigate. His prolonged absence drags Nero Wolfe from the comfortable confines of the brownstone on West 35th Street. Wolfe knows if he wants his right-hand man back on the job, he'll have to help Archie solve the case.

One of the charms of the Wolfe mysteries is that while the characters never age, the time period stays current. Stout's plot gives a nod to the 1960s by dealing in an out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy, but the decade didn't truly come into full flower in Wolfe's world until Death of a Doxy.

There's so much going on in this little book. Wolfe is a fish out of water in Montana, and the colorful Western dialect practically requires a glossary at the back of the book. Still, the murder is solved, the innocent cleared and the guilty caught, arrogant law enforcement is given a severe comeuppance, and Nero and Archie escape thankfully back to New York City, where the wilderness is a little more to their liking. ( )

This was always one of my favorite Nero Wolfe's, for a couple of reasons. First, the big man had to actually leave his home and travel, via car AND plane, around 2,000 miles to a ranch where he endured massive discomfort. True sign that his affection for Archie, despite his protests to the contrary, really does know no bounds.
Stout also introduced a character that I found nearly as fun as the famous Julie Jaquette. Woody owns a building that houses the town's only movie theater (open on Saturday evenings), dance hall (open after the movie ends) and museum of curiosities. Wolfe found him interesting and so did I.
On a side note, I've been re-reading some of the older mysteries that enthralled me as a girl, to see how they have held up through the years, and if they can still stand proud (the one Ellery Queen - written in the thirties, I recall - I found was unable to pass any kind of moral or ethical test, with casual sexism and racism abounding.) I am so pleased that even today, Rex Stout's mysteries shine as examples of what human reaction/behavior should be.
"Woody asked him what they would regard as a greater sentence and Wolfe said, 'I could suggest a dozen or more, but the most likely one is also displayed on your wall.' He pointed to the Declaration of Independence. 'All men are created equal.'"
My hero. ( )

4/9/22

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. ( )