- Too Many Women
infobox Book |
name = Too Many Women
title_orig =
translator =
image_caption =
author =Rex Stout
cover_artist = Robert Hallock
country =United States
language = English
series =Nero Wolfe
genre =Detective fiction
publisher =Viking Press
release_date = October 20, 1947
media_type = Print (Hardcover )
pages = 251 pp. (first edition)
isbn = NA
preceded_by =The Silent Speaker
followed_by =And Be a Villain "Too Many Women" is a
Nero Wolfe detective novel byRex Stout , published in 1947 by theViking Press . The novel was also collected in the omnibus volume "All Aces" (Viking 1958).Plot introduction
A malcontent at the Naylor-Kerr corporation charges that one of its employees, thought to have been killed in a hit-and-run accident, was actually murdered. The president of the colossal company hires Archie to look into the matter in the guise of a personnel consultant working in Naylor-Kerr's executive offices — where 500 beautiful woman have been gathered under one roof.
Literary significance and criticism
*
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, "A Catalogue of Crime" — Archie is the center of a seraglio of designing creatures, who want to bribe or seduce him as he helps Nero discover who killed (the victim in a firm) that employs 500 women. Longer than the later tales, this one has a great many lively turns and a good surprise ending.Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. "A Catalogue of Crime". New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8]* J. Kenneth Van Dover, "At Wolfe's Door" — "Too Many Women" is one of the last novels of the series to animate the established conventions without going beyond them (e.g. by introducing a master criminal or by implicating one of the members of the repertory cast). Wolfe's role is subordinate to that of Archie, who engages in a number of entertaining encounters with the women of Naylor-Kerr. [Van Dover, J. Kenneth, "At Wolfe's Door: The Nero Wolfe Novels of Rex Stout" (1991, Borgo Press, Mitford Series; second edition 2003, James A. Rock & Co., Publishers; Hardcover ISBN 091873651X / Paperback ISBN 0918736528); p. 19]
Release details
*1999, USA, The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters ISBN 1572701048 July 1999, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
*1985, USA, Bantam ISBN 0553250663 July 1985, paperbackReferences
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