Kb > Recent Status Updates

“Shut up, you slimy, blackmailing keyhole peeper.”

Beginning of Ch. 12, Lana says in reply to an offer of tea: “‘Sure, that would be nice,’ I responded politely.” Don’t know if it’s a Lana thing or an American thing, but in my world politeness would automatically include “please” or “thank you,” so her response actually lacks good manners.

It is taking me forever to read this. The investigation is pointless and boring. The only thing saving this book is the family drama.

Finished reading two of the three stories. Locked doors and open doors. Lies and subterfuge. Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe. Now on to the last of the three.

Third story, Fourth of July Picnic: Wolfe is asked to make a speech at the picnic held by the Union of Restaurant Workers. During the course of the event, another speaker falls ill and is murdered while resting in a tent set up near the stage. Wolfe and Archie are too close to the action for comfort and must save their necks by figuring out the motive and the murderer. They succeed, but it’s a bit slapdash.

Second story, Easter Parade: a camera with slide film features in this story. Wolfe has the camera for recording colour variations on his orchids. It records something else, and helps solve the murder at the Easter Parade.

First story: Archie attends a Christmas party, and murder is committed. It involves poisoned Pernod. But what about that sneaky Santa mixing the drinks? Did he do it? A twisted tale, with some era-specific (though self-aware) racism against Asian-Americans.

Second Story: The Cop-Killer
Saw this on YouTube as an episode of the A&E series from the early 2000s. Reading the actual story was just as good, if not better. Telling the truth jokingly to be taken as a lie was a master stroke as a way to avoid problems with harboring displaced persons.

First Story: From the era when America was obsessed with Communism. A man is killed by someone* switching his vitamin pill with a poison capsule.
* It’s not who you think, or when you think, but yes, Communists are involved.

Second story finished. Far too clever and unrealistic, but interesting nonetheless.

First story finished. It should have been longer; it’s missing a lot of what makes the stories enjoyable. Of note: Wolfe leaves the brownstone to come to Archie’s aid as Archie works for a client in another house. Also rare: a low fee accepted from a non-working-class client.

Murder is Corny: a tale that revolves around a delivery of corn. Different from the usual Wolfe tale, in that there is no client. Wolfe is working to save Archie, who is a murder suspect because of a pretty girl’s lie.

Finished the first story. I can’t believe it was possible to make a living shining shoes in New York in my lifetime. And yet the murdered bootblack in this story supported a daughter and was even able to put some money aside.

Two down, one to go. The second was more satisfying than the first, which I have already forgotten.

Short stories. One down, two to go.

The Mother of Invention: An incorrigible son fails to be corrected by his father

An Agacella Or: A humorous romance involving a case of mistaken identity

The Pay Yeoman: Another Navy story similar to the last

The Rose Orchid: A duty-bound naval officer learns flexibility in applying the rules

A Tyrant Abdicates: A strict landlady is not what she seems

Jonathan Standard’s Secret Vice: dated in its particulars but describes a universal situation

Warner & Wife: dated story of a woman choosing a career over traditional wifely duties, and the deleterious effect on her husband

The Rope Dance: a cowboy finds romance in New York

An Officer and a Lady: dated story with a cute twist

“But for a tendency to embonpoint, he would have been good looking.”
(Is this Christie’s way of saying he has man-boobs?)

“Orgy is not a verb.”

“I dug my own grave, that’s true; but realizing and confessing it, I may still resent the slime and the worms.”

The past tense of “lead” is “led”—but this book continually and consistently spells it “lead”. (I wish I could find that less annoying than I actually do.)