Before Midnight

Nero Wolfe #25

by Rex Stout

When a contestant is killed during the final round of the Pour Amour perfume contest, Nero Wolfe must find the person who stole the recipe to the dead contestant's perfume in order to solve the crime. Reissue.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Detective, Crime, Audiobook, Ebooks, 20th Century

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 27, 1955

About the author

Rex Todhunter Stout (1886–1975) was an American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975 (A Family Affair).

The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A five hundred thousand dollar prize is being offered by "Pour Amor" perfume. All the reader has to do is find the five cosmetic-using women described in a series of five quatrains. But then the author of the five quatrains ends up dead, and a paper containing the solution is missing. Nero Wolfe is hired--not to solve the murder--but to find out what happened to the paper. And for once, he and Cramer can work together amicably.

A particularly good entry in this continuing series.

[hotsake (André Troesch) · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not one of the best in the series this was still an extremely entertaining and fun read.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The twenty-fifth book in the Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout. This story takes place in 1955. An advertising agency has come up with a clever contest for Pour Amour perfume. A million dollar prize for the winner. A series of riddles about woman and cosmetics. The entrants have been whittled down to five finalists and have all been invited to New York. Then the clever ad man who came up with the idea and created the riddles winds up dead. His wallet, which contained the answers to the final riddles, is missing. Did the piece of paper he showed everyone actually contain the answers? The advertising agency hires Wolfe. Not to find the murderer but to find out who took the wallet and whether the paper contained the answers to the final riddles.

Maybe Wolfe and Cramer can actually get along on this case. Of course there is another murder and this one takes place in Wolfe's own office. That changes everything. Wolfe is humiliated and insulted. He stays up all night to solve the case. He will even leave his home on West 35th Street to identify the murderer.

A Nero Wolfe story is always a fun and enjoyable read. It is a nostalgic step back in time. Rex Stout was a great story teller. The dialogue between Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, his confidential assistant, is what makes these stories so great. Wolfe would probably be content to tend his orchids and eat gourmet meals prepared by his chef, Fritz Brenner if he didn't have Archie to badger him. Wolfe occasionally brings in Saul Panzer, Orie Cather, Fred Durkin to assist in the case and they make an appearance in this story. A fun and quick read. A nice visit with Wolfe, Archie, Fritz, and the whole gang.

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a bedtime book as a break from heftier tomes. It has been 11 years since I first read it and it still engrosses me.

Of course it another "A" from me from my favorite mystery author and his inimitable creations Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

In this tale, a perfume company is offering a million dollar prize contest in which the contestants have to guess the identity of famous/infamous women described in verse. The questions get harder as the contest proceeds and there are now five individuals left in the competition. New questions will be given to them with a deadline to submit their answers. The creator of the quiz waves a paper at the contestants at a dinner and tells them that it contains the answers and returns it to his wallet. In true Stout style, he is murdered and his wallet is missing. the company is in an uproar and come to Wolfe to find out who stole the answers.

Then another murder occurs in Wolfe's office in front of all the suspects and Wolfe is temporarily baffled. Not to fear, his genius is brought to bear.....a clever solution ties it up very neatly. Highly recommended from the world's most fanatic Nero Wolfe fan.

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual, it's not the mystery that is so compelling as it is the witty banter between Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin and, even funnier, are Goodwin's sarcastic thoughts read by us.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one kept me guessing the whole way through AND had some really neat twists.

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would appreciate it if they would call a halt on all their devoted efforts to find a way to abolish war or eliminate disease or run trains with atoms or extend the span of human life to a couple of centuries, and everybody concentrate for a while on how to wake me up in the morning without my resenting it. It may be that a bevy of beautiful maidens in pure silk yellow very sheer gowns, barefooted, singing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning and scattering rose petals over me would do the trick, but I'd have to try it. ~Archie Goodwin (a man after my own heart--substitute beautiful men for the maidens, however)

Archie Goodwin never dreamed he'd wake up one morning to find four men from Lippert, Buff, & Assa (LBA), the advertising company which handles Pour Amour, would show up on the brownstone's doorstep the day after he'd shown the perfume's ad to Nero Wolfe. But there they were, in living color, on the other side of the one-way glass panel in the door, clamoring to come in and see Wolfe before he was due to finish in the plant rooms.

LBA has been running a promotional million dollar (total prizes) contest for Pour Amour that has involved contestants solving clues, offered five quatrains, which point to the identity of famous cosmetic-using women. There have been several rounds--which opened with millions of contestants--that have resulted in a final round with five remaining prize-seekers. The last round of quatrains was just given to the contestants, in person, last night. So what has these four men in such a tizzy? Louis Dahlman, the brilliant--if difficult--young up-and-coming ad man whose brainchild the contest was and the only man who knew the answers to the contest, is dead. There were two copies of the answers. One set was locked in a safe deposit box that no one has accessed and the other set was in Dahlman's wallet last night. The wallet is now missing. LBA wants to hire Wolfe. Not to solve the murder, but to find out who took the wallet and the answers. If the thief is the killer, then Wolfe is welcome to hand him/her over to the authorities. But all LBA cares about is the integrity of the contest.

Does that bit of hardheartedness towards their former colleague bother Wolfe enough that he doesn't take the case? Of course not. A blank check fee has just been offered to him. So he sets about interviewing the contestants and the members of the firm and believes that he is shaping the case up nicely...until the murderer has the audacity to commit another murder in Wolfe's own office right under his nose. Cramer accuses him of having changed his job from finding the thief to finding a murderer and warns him to stick to his original contract.

Confound it, can a man kill with impunity in my office, with my liquor in my glass?

But, after being hoodwinked (Wolfe's word), the great detective is determined to finish the job he was hired to do. And he's pretty sure he'll be taking care of Cramer's job as well. And if he has to leave the brownstone to do it...well, that's just the price he'll have to pay. After all--he can recoup his losses in that blank check...

Cleverly plotted with a range of interesting characters--particularly the contestants. It's worth it just for the conversation between Wolfe and the history professor. One drawback--Archie has so little to do. In fact, until the wrap-up at the end, nobody does much of anything. Lots of interviews and talking. Fortunately, Stout knew how to write dialogue and the interactions are interesting, humorous, and enjoyable.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.

[Amaranta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un Nero Wolfe che combatte contro il tempo per risolvere un piccolo enigma che sta alla base di un omicidio.
Nonostante sia giunto alla soluzione del giallo, questa volta Nero risulta sconfitto, viene battuto nella sua stessa casa e si scalfisce un po’ l’immagine di supereroe che dalla sua poltrona distende la sua longa manus su tutto. Lettura piacevolissima.

[Vicki Cline · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perfume company is running a contest and the five finalists have been flown to New York for the final puzzles. But the person in charge of the questions and answers has been murdered and the list of answers he had is missing. Wolfe is hired, not to solve the murder, but to find out who took the answer sheet. Of course, he does solve the murder, but not until someone dies in his study, during an all-suspect meeting. I like the conversation Wolfe has with one of the contestants, a professor - very entertaining.

[Stacie Haden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I may mourn when I'm done with this series. He just doesn't miss.

[Sean O · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good Nero Wolfe mystery. It’s the mid 50s, so they watch television. Bizarre.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 3 out of 5]

When an arrogant marketing man is found murdered in his apartment and his wallet stolen, five colourful contestants for a half million dollar competition prize are the obvious suspects. The dead man wrote the questions, his wallet contained the answers, a fact which he had foolishly made them aware of.

Wolfe is hired by the three senior members of the marketing firm to find out who stole the answers and to solve their publicity problem but not, as he constantly points out to Crammer and the cops, to find the murderer. As the contestants are not all from New York and must travel home he is given a deadline, a surefire way to irritate him.

The biggest crime in Before Midnight is actually the criminal underusage of Archie. Wolfe himself was also even more inert than usual, merely sitting around reading novels for the most part. We forgive him, for as Archie points out:

'That may not be the way you go about settling down to work on a hard job with a close deadline, but you're not a genius'.

For Archie to be virtually unemployed throughout is a high price for a plot to pay. In recompense I was hoping for a mighty flourish from Wolfe at his customary conference scene to save the story. Rest assured, Stout delivered in spades, serving up some major surprises to wrap things up.

Underwhelming for the most part, Before Midnight is still an enjoyable read because Stout is an expert card sharp, keeping all his aces for the final hand.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it's because the listening to this audio book was so interrupted; it seemed like every time I'd get into the story someone would just have to talk to me, or the phone would ring. However, the case just didn't engage me. That's not so bad; Wolfe didn't care for it, either. Why he took it is beyond me, even with Archie's badgering. Who cares about a silly perfume contest, anyway? In my experience, these publicity stunts are often fixed from the get-go, in any case. But I digress, as I have been known to do. However, it's not surprising that this case has never been filmed, to my knowledge. There's just not enough to interest an audience until the final quarter. Up to then it's all talk-talk. Even when Saul and Co get involved, it's very surface, and I didn't find any of the case characters interesting.
I couldn't get into it, and the constant interruptions may have played a part in that. But I did find my mind wandering even as I listened. Two and a half stars, then.

ETA: 17/12/16 I just listened to it again because I couldn't remember anything about it until I got into the audiobook again. Totally forgettable, does not improve on a second listen.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

my third series detective novel review of the night: this one, a nero wolfe mystery. wolfe is a fat gourmande who loves orchids and has his detecting legwork done by his assistant, archie goodwin, who also narrates the novel's action, and in some ways, wolfe and goodwin form two halves of one perfect detective. things i liked about this novel: how saucy archie was in his narration, the loyalty and the test of loyalty between wolfe and goodwin echoed in the plot, the plan for a big reveal at a dinner party that is thwarted by a murder under wolfe's own nose, subverting that standard in detective fiction. i was not able to determine who the killer was, and i like not knowing. will read more: probably those zeck ones adrian told me about. :)

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe tackle murder that has complicated a perfume contest with a half million dollar prize. Maybe not one of the high points in the series, but it’s pleasant to be back in the brownstone with Archie, Fritz and the orchids, with Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins at the door, and Saul Panzer up to only-Wolfe-knows-what.

[Luke Meehan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Standard Stout crime drama, but perhaps a little less charming and more convoluted than most. Abandoning a promising set of characters at the half-way point was a shame, and replacing them with cookie-cutter corporate was very odd. Still, pleasant easy reading.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last year I started filling in the gaps on some of my favorite authors, including Rex Stout, and bought a dozen or so to read in addition to the 40+ I read years ago. It's amazing and a tribute to Stout how entertaining the Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin stories remain several decades later.

[EuroHackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A welcome return to the lighter side of detecting after a couple of fishing expeditions.

This is exactly what it says on the tin: a perfume company is running a contest worth nearly $1m in prizes. It's getting down to the wire, and there's a five-way tie for first. The contestants are summoned to New York and given a fresh set of clues to solve. The man running the contest is killed, and the answers are stolen from his wallet. The ad agency he worked for hires Nero Wolfe not to find out who killed him, but who stole the answers - they are more interested in saving their contest than in finding a killer.

The five finalists are quirky delights; the ad agency men (and the head of the perfume company) are reassuringly awful; Nero Wolfe is disgusted by the idea of trying to save a perfume company ad contest for a product called Pour Amour (LOL). But he's willing to do a fair day's work for a fair day's wage, and so he gets on with it. The ad agency tries to give him a deadline of a week to solve the theft, lest their contest fall into complete chaos and ruin, but it's not until someone is killed in his office that he is really spurred into action. There's nothing that pisses Wolfe off more than someone daring to commit murder on his premises.

This was an easy, fun, fairly light-hearted read. There are no conspiracy theories or political machinations going on, which helps the atmosphere immensely. I was kinda disappointed with whodunit (I wanted it to be a different guy from the ad agency), but all in all, a good read. Onto the next!

[Pamela Shropshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite aspects of this series is the time period. I’ve always been a history enthusiast, not necessarily for dates and places, but for what every day life was like. This Wolfe/Archie adventure has Mad Men vibes; a Madison Avenue ad agency is running a massive contest for a perfume company. A series of riddles has been published, once weekly, each riddle is about “a woman recorded in nonfictional history in any of its forms, including biography, as having used cosmetics.” The first prize is $500,000.00, which would be stunning even today, and the total of all prizes to be awarded is worth $1M.

The ad man who conceived this idea is murdered, after flashing a piece of paper that supposedly contains the 5 tie-breaker riddles. The paper is not found on the corpse. The ad agency hires Wolfe, not to find the murderer, but to discover who took the paper from the murdered man and to try to save the agency from being ruined by bad publicity.

Wolfe is humiliated at one of his famous meetings when one of the partners is poisoned and falls down dead in Wolfe’s office. It’s even worse because Inspector Cramer and Sgt. Stebbins are present. Nevertheless, Wolfe eventually fulfills his commission and discovers the murderer, of course.

[cool breeze · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a slightly below average Nero Wolfe mystery. The pacing is slower than usual until near the conclusion – Archie does little and Wolfe almost nothing. The plot turns out to be more complicated than usual, with some major twists at the end. Even Wolfe is fooled and embarrassed by one of them. However, I don’t think enough groundwork was laid for them, making them feel a bit like cheap tricks. The Dahlmann murder is never adequately explained and apparently never prosecuted.

There are a few noteworthy observations about contemporary life in 1955. The hydrogen bomb is mentioned for the first time in the series. Watching television is becoming a daily routine, even in the Wolfe household. The staff of Time (“Clock”) magazine make appearances. There is a growing activist organization of ugly women campaigning against the use of all beauty products. A college professor believes it is career suicide to be associated with anything in popular culture, showing the increasing disdain of the self-appointed “elite” intelligentsia for those they consider their inferiors. Finally, and central to the plot, advertising agencies have become enormously profitable big businesses by manipulating public opinion rather than producing useful products.

[Tim Healy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really a humdinger of a story. Unusually for Wolfe, it doesn't start with a murder investigation. Rather, it starts with the possible theft of the answers to a group of puzzles worth a possible half million dollars to a prize winner. Wolfe is left to figure out who may have stolen the answers and prevent the theft of the prize money. It's an odd setup, but quickly becomes quite serious. Archie has everything he can handle just trying to help keep Wolfe's schedule the way he likes it and protect his inflexible employer from being upset. One particular explosion over a dinner cut to a mere hour and a half was quite funny to me. Anyway, other than the delivery methods, this is a pretty up-to-the moment idea, even today. And it's quite fun to watch Wolfe and Archie stumble their way through this. The twists are fun, and the disruption of routine caused by Stebbins and Cramer not being in direct competition on their murder investigations leaves them as discombobulated as anyone else. Anyway, I really enjoyed this one, hence the five stars.

[Alecia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my 2nd Nero Wolf book, and I am choosing in no particular order. I'd give this one 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars for the witty, clever writing. There is a lot of talking by the characters in this one, and it is fairly static. But Archie Goodwin remains a very entertaining, acerbic narrator, and I will keep reading this series. How did I miss it?

[Ken Mattes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Episode 25 of the Nero Wolfe series and an enjoyable listen to the 30’s style characters and dialogue.

[David Magill · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting concept and a twist in the end that makes it a good read.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
BOOK 249 (of 250)
"No Good" and "Lousy" are scribbled on the title page of this book I checked out of the library. I usually look at that as destruction of someone else's property. And all through the book there are notes like "This makes no sense" and "Nope, doesn't work" and "Nonsense" and even more graphic terms. I really wish I'd heeded that first page warning.
HOOK - 1 star: >>>"Not that our small talk that Tuesday evening in April had any important bearing on the matter, but it will do for an overture, and it will help to explain a couple of reactions Nero Wolfe had later"<<BIG PROBLEM!!! Archie, the narrator, is already making excuses! "Not that our small talk...had any important bearing on the matter": it didn't, and the author knows it and knows the reader is going to find out fast. Then, "..but it will do for an overture...": no, I don't want to be told, as a reader, that "it will do" because the author is telling me this is subpar work but I'll have to accept it. I want GOOD work. Then, "...and it will explain a couple of reactions Nero Wolfe had later..": if the author has to tell me that something will explain something later, it probably won't, and it doesn't. Three excuses right there in the opening paragraph, probably written after the end, which itself is completely inexplicable.
PACE - 1 star: About halfway through, this book veers off from its premise and gets bogged down in total nonsense. When Nero plans his big 'reveal' at the end and invites a number of people, we're told such things as so-and-so arrived "a few minutes early" or "right on time" just to up the word count. And by the end of the book, we're reading a different story. I had to force myself to read the last five pages, one page at a time.
PLOT - 1: The premise is good. A cosmetic company has a contest to promote a perfume. The company will compose verses about famous, non-fiction women and whoever identifies all the women gets...(get ready, are you sitting down?) ..$500,000! In 1955! Yea, sure. So Stout gives us a few of the verses and shows how the verses have multiple meanings, leading us on to a path of murder, insinuating that maybe the verses have something to do with the murder. GREAT! If we read the verses, we can solve the murder AND identify the mystery historical woman. Nope, halfway through the book switches rails to corporate politics. Thus, the plot is all nonsense, going nowhere. We get 4 of the first 20 verses, and I think 1 of the last five. BIG PROBLEM: the author couldn't think of any more verses, it's obvious, or just didn't care to bother with them.
CAST - 1: Even Nero and Archie whine about having nothing to do. Their banter is good, as usual, but really, they have NOTHING to do! They may as well not even be in the book. There are five finalists in the contest, but they have nothing to do with the second half of the book. And the corporate people are flat and their motives inexplicable.
ATMOSPHERE - 1: Okay, yes, Nero's brownstone and orchids and beer and knowledge are all here. But these elements are in all of the Stout/Nero books. When Fritz, the cook, prepare's lamb hearts soaked in sour milk with herbs, I sorta vomited a bit. Ugh. If a book turns my stomach in a very bad way (a good way would be an anti-hero doing something despicable, for example) it's gonna get 1 star.
SUMMARY - 1.0. This is not only the weakest of the Nero/Stout books I've read, but it's the worst "who-done-it" I remember reading: I didn't get the motive, the how, nothing. If this were the first Stout/Wolfe book I'd read, I'd never read another. I did like the last line: "He rang for beer". Maybe that's helped readers get through this mess. I recommend this book to absolutely no one...sober. If you must, then grab a six-pack first.

[Alexis Neal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone's talking about the Pour Amour perfume contest . . . and the million dollars in prize money that will be awarded to the lucky winners who can solve the cosmetics-related riddles put out by the company. The contest has been a roaring success. The five finalists are assembled in New York City, and the last five riddles have been distributed. Everything's going swimmingly . . . until the contest creator winds up dead, and the list of answers he had in his pocket is nowhere to be found. So the advertising execs do what any reasonably person would do: they head straight for the office of Nero Wolfe and hire him to figure out who took the list of answers, and to find a way to resolve the contest. But there's a catch: he has to finish the job before midnight on April 19th.

Yet another perfectly serviceable mystery story. This particular volume gives us a glimpse into Archie and Wolfe's private communication rules (no direct lies), an ode to Saul Panzer, and Archie's thoughts on mornings, as well as an opportunity to observe Wolfe's humiliation and rage when someone has the audacity to murder one of the suspects in Wolfe's own office (which has, I believe been the scene of no fewer than half a dozen murders or attempted murders over the years). In fact, he's so irate that he decides to make one of his rare (but not unheard-of) excursions outside the old brownstone. Heads will roll. Or at least one, anyway.

The contestants are quite a hoot as well: the incomparably ugly founder of the Women's Nature League, a smugly superior (and unjustifiably despondent) history professor, an undernourished but surprisingly self-possessed housewife, a sassy researcher with a phalanx of silent supporters, and a man who looks like Old King Cole. We see all the usuals, of course: the phlegmatic Fritz; Inspector Cramer (and his sidekick Sergeant Stebbins); and supporting P.I.'s Fred Durkin, Orrie Cather, and even Bill Gore. And we get to learn a little something about the history of cosmetics--or at least the women who used them.

The story is, perhaps, not one of Stout's best, but I still find it highly enjoyable. Fans of Nero Wolfe would do well to check out this volume, though I don't know that I would recommend it to new readers. Start with Some Buried Caesar or Death of a Doxy instead (though Too Many Cooks, Too Many Clients, and The Mother Hunt are also excellent).

[For those interested in the audiobook edition, be warned: it's actually a digitized version of an audio cassette recording, and dates from an age when audiobook narrators just read the book, instead of really trying to give life (and unique voices) to the characters. As a result, Michael Prichard's narration is a bit dry, and while there are subtle differences between the characters' voices, it really is like listening to some guy read the book. There isn't any sparkle to the performance. In other words: Jim Dale he ain't.]

[Christopher Rush · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Nero Wolfe adventure is a mixed bag: the initial idea of Wolfe getting embroiled in a perfume contest is great, especially as there is a murder but he has to convince Cramer and others he is not interested in the murder aspect of the case (truly) - then, though, the story really screeches to a halt toward the middle during the "interviewing suspects" phase. Don't get me wrong, it's filled with quirky characters, but I suspect the dearth of Cramer time drags it down a bit, as clever as the entire set-up is. This one may suffer from too many characters, though the spread is likely necessary to deflect suspicion and add to the consternation of it all, especially for Wolfe who has a dickens of a time figuring this one out. That consternation toward the end, though, takes this story to very intriguing and new directions for a Wolfe adventure. Just when it looks like it will all get sewn up, a new murder occurs completely throwing Wolfe into a tizzy from which he can only escape by apologizing to Cramer and leaving the house. It's a very tense ending with a fair amount of humorous moments despite the situations involved.

[astaliegurec · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rex Stout's "Before Midnight" (first published in 1955) is the 25th book in his "Nero Wolfe" series. It's another excellent one: great writing and characterizations, and an interesting mystery. As an interesting aside, it struck me once again during this book how good Rex Stout's writing is. Every person has his own personality, and every event is wonderfully described. Heck, every sentence is wonderfully crafted. So, I'm happy to rate the book at an Excellent 5 stars out of 5.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Better than Black Mountain, but not among my favorites. This one is a little odd--Wolfe doesn't actually do much, which means Archie Goodwin doesn't do much. There is an enormous amount of arguing, so the story is a little on the hysterical side.

Re-read: thought it was a little better this time, maybe 3 stars. But not a great one. At least Wolfe DOES figure out the killer in this one, rather than just overhearing it from someone else.

[Alan Lengel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my 5th reading over many years of Rex Stout. I especially enjoy when Saul Panzer, Orie Cather, Fred Durkin arrive to resolve difficulties. Bill Gore didn't last. Thanks to my wife for hooking me up to Nero Wolfe some forty years ago.