The Doorbell Rang

I have never read a Rex Stout mystery before. This isn't what I expected.

I had thought this would be a bit of a cosy: a polite murder would have occurred, a mystery would ensue, and Nero Wolfe would solve it, then the story would end as he sipped cognac beside a fire. Nothing too challenging.

What I found instead was a story about misuse of power by the FBI, with a very dismissive attitude towards the then head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.  Published in 1963, I can't imagine how this would have gone over. It would be like a mystery being written now today with Trump being the one under suspicion. There is no clever misdirection or you know who I'm talking about here sleight of narrative hand: Stout is very clear who and what he is talking about.

If you have never read a Nero Wolfe mystery before, here's a quick primer:

Nero Wolfe is an overweight detective who apparently dislikes to leave his home in New York. He has a main operative, Archie Goodwin, who does all the running about New York to gather clues and run investigations while Wolfe luxuriates with his orchids and reads his many books.

Wolfe seems to take work begrudgingly, and so is intrigued when he's offered a job with enough of a payday that he could take the rest of the year off. The job, though, is to stop the FBI from harassing a client. A wealthy client who may have very well pissed off the FBI herself by sending out piles of books to people, a book that points out what a shitshow the FBI is. No wonder they might be applying the screws.

The Doorbell Rang is a strange mystery, in that the enemy--in this case, the FBI--is very nebulous. Maybe the FBI is watching them, or maybe they aren't. Maybe their client isn't being harassed. Or maybe she is, and maybe--just maybe-- the FBI is misusing their power to such a degree that Wolfe and Goodwin are taking on of the most powerful organizations in the world, with all the danger and threat that entails.

With the fog of mystery surrounding the actions of both Wolfe and Goodwin,, Stout wisely introduces a more standard crime as a sub-plot, grounding the story with at least one murder they can physically interact with. As the story concludes, both mysteries are resolved well, with the title of the book suddenly making sense.

Set in early Sixties New York, I enjoyed all the references to a time long gone: a time when detectives used pay phones, asked cabbies to lose tails, and would ruminate about a case while having a corn beef on rye in a diner. Goodwin is a pleasant guy to hang out with for a few hours, with his overriding sarcasm and offbeat humour, and readiness to lay the boots to anyone who has it coming.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this.