Customer Reviews

Three Doors to Death

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This edition boasts "As Seen on TV!" on the cover, alluding to the fact that one (as of the 2nd season) of the 3 stories herein has been adapted by A&E. The introduction is provided by Jonathan Kellerman, but otherwise the book is pure Stout. Archie provides a rare foreword, having noticed that Wolfe got a fee in only 1 of the 3 cases herein, to head off any funny ideas that might turn into a nuisance. :)

"Man Alive" - Cynthia Nieder, a young model getting hands-on experience as a fashion designer, not only inherited her uncle's half of Daumery & Nieder upon his death, but can supply the creative talent that was his contribution to the business. (Jean Daumery supplied the nuts-and-bolts business talent needed.) Cynthia wasn't surprised that uncle Paul killed himself within a week of Helen Daumery's death in a riding accident, since he'd been in love with her. (Although jumping naked into a geyser is an unusual method...)

That is, she wasn't surprised until she saw him in disguise a week ago in the audience at Daumery & Nieder's fall show, a few weeks after his partner Daumery's death in a boating accident. Did she really see him? Is the business as solvent as the creative side of the house thought it was? Who is trying to befuddle whom here?

"Omit Flowers" - Marko Vukcic, Wolfe's best friend, asks Wolfe to investigate the death of Floyd Whitten, who married the wealthy widow of the founder of the AMBROSIA fast-food chain, but not because of any care for the victim. Virgil Pompa, a once great chef forfeited any claim to professional respect when he took a high paying job in AMBROSIA administration, was once 'the best sauce man in France', and Marko owes him a lot. More, he knows Pompa well, and won't see him tried for a murder he didn't commit.

"Door to Death" - I recommend A&E's excellent, faithful adaptation with Maury Chaykin as Wolfe. Wolfe hardly ever leaves the brownstone, but a crisis has arisen: Theodore, the orchid nurse (as Archie calls him) is on an indefinite leave of absence due to his mother's critical illness. Not that Wolfe is worrying about old Mrs. Horstmann - with Theodore away, he can't just relax with the plants for a few hours a day; he has to *work*, and he's not a pro like Theodore.

Wolfe trudges all the way to Westchester with Archie, to tempt Andy Krasicki away from Mr. Joseph Pitcairn's orchids and into the brownstone for the duration. Andy is willing, and Wolfe, while happy to have his problem solved and to receive a tour of Mr. Pitcairn's orchids (as grown by Andy), might just as well have waited at home for a reply to his letter. But during the tour, they find Dani Lauer, Mrs. Pitcairn's nurse, dead under one of the orchid benches - apparently knocked out, then left to die during the previous night's fumigation. Wolfe sets to work to get his stand-in orchid tender out from under.

"Three Doors to Death" is a collection of 3 short Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout. In "Man Alive", Cynthia Nieder asks Wolfe to find her uncle after seeing him in New York. Paul Nieder had "committed" suicide by jumping in a geyser. Before Wolfe can find him, Nieder is murdered. In "Omit Flowers", Mario Vukcic asks Wolfe to help clear his friend, Virgil Pompa who is accused of murdering Floyd Whitten. In "Door to Death", Theodore Horstmann takes a leave of absence, and Wolfe goes to Joseph Pitcairn to hire his orchid man until Theodore returns. While there, Dini Lauer, Mrs. Pitcairn's nurse, is found dead under an orchid bench. Wolfe feels obligated to solve the crime. All three of these short novels are excellent. The plots are strong. I always enjoy going into the old brownstone with Archie and Wolfe.

I cannot stop reading this book! The charactures are so vivid and real that I feel as though I am really there. Read this book!

"Three Doors to Death" is a collection of three short mystery stories that were written in the late 1940s and set in New York. The mysteries were whodunit logic puzzles in style. Combined with the short story format, this meant that the characters didn't have much depth or complexity...though Wolfe and his clever assistant were engaging and a little more filled out.

I think I like Nero Wolfe as a brainy detective better than Sherlock Holmes and the like. It's Wolfe's genius that allows him to ask the right questions and know how to play various characters off each other. However, we get the clues as he does and so the exact moment that Wolfe knew (without a doubt) who did it, I did, too. The timing was impeccable, keeping me fully engaged in the puzzle but never feeling frustrated. I've never read anything else by Rex Stout, so I wonder if his novels are like this, too.

There was a minor amount of cussing and swearing. There was no sex. Overall, I'd highly recommend this novel (and author) to those who like logic-puzzle mysteries.

Three stories. The first is about fashion, faked deaths and real murder. The second story is about murder, family wealth and diners. The last is about love, anger and flowers. Nero Wolfe even gets out of the house in that last story. Archie Goodwin finds a lot of girls who he would be willing to marry. We get three great stories. Everybody wins!

I'm a big fan of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. The entire line of Rex Stout's Nero Wofe books are excellent. Great pricing from Amazon as well.

One of these made it to the A&E series; as with other short stories, it would have been great to see the ensemble cast tackle the rest.

"Door to Death" was done by A&E, and we get to meet Andy Krusiecky, the man we'd all wished Theordore Horstmann could be. He's young, personable and a genius with the orchids...and suffers an awful loss.

"Man Alive" is about geyser-jumping. Not for the faint of heart...but his neice says that what looks to everyone like a suicide is really something else.

Finally, "Omit Flowers" is about a chef falsely accused of murder. You cannot beat food and murder in the Wolfe genre...but in the end, the way a woman feels about a man she loves who does not love her back tells the tale.

These are good stories, although you can detect a little "rushing" and lack of polish in some of the writing.

The book arrived in a short amount of time. The book itself was in new condition and I was delighted. Rex Stout has been a favorite of mine for over 40 years and there's quite a few of his mysteries I don't have, so I'm starting to collect again now that I can find them here and at such a great price.

I thoroughly enjoyed all three stories in this volume, but I found the typographical errors to be somewhat distracting. I imagine that they were caused during optical scanning of the original printed version and not caught before releasing the electronic Kindle version. For example, in Chapter IX of the last story the book reads, "I have had you together; now FU take you one by one; and FU start with Mrs. Pitcairn." I am guessing that "FU" is meant to be "I'll" (I will). It seems like even a casual check would have caught errors like this one, and there are others scattered through the book. Still, the stories themselves are a real treat. The chemistry and banter between Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin is first rate.