20 June, 2003
The Father Hunt, Rex Stout (184 pp, HC, 1968).
Another quickie to pass the time until the new Harry Potter. Here, a young lady hires Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin to find out who her father is. Her mother died recently in a hit-and-run incident, which may or may not have been murder. So, our heroes dutifully begin spending the client's inheritance investigating the circumstances of her birth. And, of course, the "father hunt" ties in with the mother's death. This installment of the series is notable in that the case on which the detectives focus their energies is not the murder, but the rather more prosaic question of the client's paternity, and also in that there is rather a lot of detection in the book. There's clue-gathering, witness-interviewing, and evidence-analyzing aplenty.
One thing that strikes me: Nero Wolfe is supposed to be some sort of ultra-gourmet, a real lover of good food. Reading about some of the meals Fritz serves, I can only say that I'm glad I'm not a gourmet in 1968. Wolfe's choice fare includes: