Customer Reviews

Not Quite Dead Enough and Booby Trap: Two Nero Wolfe Mysteries

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Just got this CD set, so now I have, let's see, 27 Nero Wolfe books on tape or CD.

There's no help for it.

Now, bear in mind that while Michael Pritchard read most of these, he did not read all of these, and that is not satisfactory. An actor from the A&E series read one or two of them and while I admite his chutzpah, he's no Pritchard.

I hope that, eventually, Pritchard records ALL of the Wolfe stories.

Michael Pritchard jumps into these two stories with his usual enthusiam. I love the way he does Wolfe - not exaggerating or overplaying, but clearly conveying that Wolfe is a big guy with a commanding voice. Maury Chaykin comments on the A&E DVDs that "no one talks like Nero Wolfe." Well, I know one guy who does...

And when Pritchard speaks with Archie's voice [and Archie's "inner voice"], he captures Archie's special combination of earnestness and cynicism that makes him so appealing.

These two stories are logically grouped as among Stout's World War II efforts. Some have derided the first one as too implausible, and recommend jumping right into "Booby Trap." With the CD set, it's pretty easy to do that: the tracks are clearly labelled. But if you do, you actually miss some of the "setup material" since, it appears, "Not Quite..." is set at a time frame preceding "Booby Trap."

Suit yourself. Since I cannot get enough of Nero Wolfe, I just let the good times roll...

A welcome distraction for Wolfe fans. While worthy of the Wolfe name, neither of these stories has the amount of plot and character depth as most of Stout's other novels. But that by no means, means that these stories aren't an interesting listen.
Prichard of course delivers the subtle differences of every character in his inimitable way.
Not Quite Dead Enough is the best of the two, and is in my opinion, one of Stout's best short stories.
Booby Trap shows a bit of a 'dark side' of Wolfe, wherein, ***spoiler*** he persuades a murderer to commit suicide near the end. But overall this collection is a must-read for Wolfe fanatics, as is pretty much every other Wolfe novel.

I bought this product in the CD version and received the BBC Audio edition rather than the one from Audio Partners. The first story, "Not Quite Dead Enough" was incomplete. The whole first chapter and beginning of the second were omitted. I opted for a refund from Amazon rather than a replacement since every copy of the BBC Audio edition is likely to be similarly defective.