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A Right to Die (Mass Market Paperback)

by Rex Stout (Author) "He had no appointment and, looking at him across the doorsill, it didn't seem likely that he would be bringing the first big fee of..." (more)
Key Phrases: red leather chair, plant rooms, old brownstone, Susan Brooke, Miss Brooke, Dunbar Whipple (more...)
4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
List Price: $6.50
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Frequently Bought Together

A Right to Die + Trio for Blunt Instruments (Nero Wolfe Mysteries) + The Second Confession (The Rex Stout Library: a Nero Wolfe Mystery)
Price For All Three: $20.99

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, are entangled in the murder case of a beautiful young socialite with too many lovers and one too many enemies--but Wolfe is sure the police are wrong to arrest her fiance+a7. Reissue.

From the Publisher
When a bright young heiress with a flair for romance and one too many enemies is found brutally murdered, Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, find themselves embroiled in a case that is not as black and white as it first appears.

Susan Brooke has everything going for her. Men would have killed themselves to marry her, and, in fact, one did.

Susan came to New York to find love and fulfillment, and ended up dead on a tenement floor. The police say her black fiance did it, but Wolfe has other ideas. Before he's done, he'll prove that good intentions and bad deeds often go hand in hand and that the highest ideals can sometimes have the deadliest consequences.

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Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Crimeline (April 1, 1991)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0553240323
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553240320
  • Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #49,878 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #14 in  Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( S ) > Stout, Rex

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
He had no appointment and, looking at him across the doorsill, it didn't seem likely that he would be bringing the first big fee of 1964. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
red leather chair, plant rooms, old brownstone
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Susan Brooke, Miss Brooke, Dunbar Whipple, Peter Vaughn, New York, Nero Wolfe, Dolly Brooke, Maud Jordan, Miss Jordan, Paul Whipple, Rights of Citizens Committee, Saul Panzer, Miss Kallman, Miss Rowan, Cass Faison, Park Avenue, Rae Kallman, Richard Ault, Beth Tiger, Kenneth Brooke, Lily Rowan, Adam Ewing, Archie Goodwin, Lon Cohen, Marjorie Ault
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A Right to Die
76% buy the item featured on this page:
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12 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, June 24, 1999
By A Customer
One of the better late Nero Wolfe stories. I notice that the other reviewer (thus far) finds Wolfe irritating--of course, he's meant to be that way, which is why we are presented with Archie as Boswell to his ponderous Johnson, perhaps the best solution ever reached to the Dr. Watson problem. What is the Dr. Watson problem? The detective can only seem brilliant if his cards are hidden--but a 1st person narrative is the only way to really involve the reader in the mystery. Thus, the author provides an assistant to the great "Sherlock." The problem is that Dr. Watson figures often seem like idiots--we're unconvinced (in a few stories) that Holmes is a genius because only Watson could have missed the obvious. Archie is competent enough himself that we never doubt for a moment that Wolfe is truly a genius--and the dialogue between Archie and Wolfe is some of the best give-and-take ever written.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Civil Rights and Private Wrongs, February 8, 2002
By George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
A beautiful young debutante joins the civil rights movement and falls in love with a co-worker. They plan to marry. He is black, she is white. Today this would present no great problem. In 1964, such a marriage was unlawful in many states and unthinkable in most of the others. The young man's father employs Nero Wolfe to "dig up some dirt" on the girl so that he can use it to talk his son out of "ruining his life."

While Wolfe plays muckraker the girl gets herself killed and her fiance discovers her body. In the wake of the discovery he manages to act guilty enough to get himself arrested. Despite the incriminating circumstantial evidence, his innocence is obvious to everyone except the police.

Wolfe undertakes to find the real killer, and discovers that almost every single member of the civil rights group had motive, means, and opportunity to kill the girl. One of the group even volunteers to confess to the murder to save the young man.

Wolfe keeps Archie and Saul Panzer hopping as they run down leads and try to sort through the tangle of evidence, and of course they come out the other side of the maze with a surprising and satisfying solution.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wolfe and Archie fight racism, July 11, 2007
By Thomas Paul (Plainview, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
Paul Whipple doesn't want his son to marry outside of his race. It's not that he doesn't like white people, but a black man marrying a white woman in 1964 is trouble. Whipple wants Nero Wolfe to help him find a way to break up their engagement. Wolfe would normally reject job like this but he owes a debt to Whipple because of an incident that had occurred in the distant past when Whipple helped him solve a case.

So off Archie goes to Racine, Wisconsin to dig up some dirt on Susan Brooke but after a fruitless search that finds not a trace of scandal, Archie gets a call from Wolfe. Return to New York... Susan Brooke has been found beaten to death in her apartment. And when Whipple's son is arrested for the crime, the case changes into a hunt for the real killer.

The book was written in 1964 at the same time the debate over the Civil Rights Act was going on. Stout covers what was controversial material at the time, reminding us that attitudes in 1964 were not the same as they are today. But this book also reminds us that we haven't come as far as we might like to think. The n-word is used in the book, but only in dialog when Stout uses it to reveal something about the character of the person who says it. Wolfe and Archie never use it, and as Archie says, "I have felt superior to plenty of people but never because of the color of my skin."

As to the the mystery itself, it is one of the best I have read so far. I didn't have the slightest idea who the killer might be and yet when it was revealed I wanted to smack myself for not getting it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Nero Wolfe and the Civil Rights Movement
One morning early in 1964 Archie ushered a potential client, Paul Whipple, into Wolfe's office. Wolfe initially rejected the case, finding 'dirt' on the man's future... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Jeanne Tassotto

5.0 out of 5 stars Nero Wolfe at his best
This book begins with Wolfe breaking one of his own rules; namely to never take a case that involves digging up dirt on someone (an undertaking he finds reprehensible and beneath... Read more
Published on April 14, 2006 by Steven Wilber

3.0 out of 5 stars Making a statement does not always produce the best work
A RIGHT TO DIE is Stout at his most political, using Wolfe to make a commentary about race relations in America. Read more
Published on September 29, 2005 by J. Carroll

4.0 out of 5 stars If A&E Starts Up Again...
...it would be fascinating to see what they would do with this story.

As you read above, it is true that Rex Stout does want to "get on the civil rights bandwagon. Read more
Published on October 10, 2004 by John P Bernat

3.0 out of 5 stars I guess he had to get on the civil rights bandwagon...
This book was boring, reading it i got the impression it was an altered storyline to fit hte current civil rights movement of hte time. Read more
Published on February 25, 2003 by star jewelers

3.0 out of 5 stars Stout on civil rights
Written during the height of the Civil Rights movement, it shows that even the classics are sometimes a part of their times. Read more
Published on December 17, 2002 by Glen Engel Cox

4.0 out of 5 stars A colorful mystery
the plot of this mystery gets us all embroiled in the civil rights issues of that day- but the ending provides an entirely unexpected twist. Read more
Published on July 7, 2000 by Wowie

5.0 out of 5 stars Wolfe on Race
This comes from the golden period of Wolfe stories, alongside Too Many Clients, Gambit, The Doorbell Rang etc. Read more
Published on August 3, 1999

2.0 out of 5 stars Good story but with revolting protagonist
In some ways, this is a very well-written mystery. It holds the reader's interest and the ending is anything but predictable. Read more
Published on May 23, 1998 by Tony McBeth (HbgEagle@aol.com)

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