Plot it Yourself by Rex Stout
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"'The [conclusion] resulted from my examination of the stories [...] They were all written by the same person. The internal evidence - diction, syntax, paragraphing - is ineluctable. You are professional word-and-language people; study those stories and you'll agree with me.'"

Another purely entertainment read and another installment in the magnificent Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout: Plot It Yourself (1959) is the 32nd novel in the series. The story begins with a serendipitous event: Mr. Wolfe is reading a book that he seems to quite like, written by a certain Philip Harvey, when the phone rings and who else but Philip Harvey is the caller.

The next morning a group of eminent book publishers, with Mr. Harvey serving as their spokesman, arrive in Nero Wolfe's office. The publishers summarize five cases of extortion where writers different than the official authors made charges of plagiarism; the cases did not go to court because of lack of sufficient evidence but the publishers had to settle for substantial amounts. They now want Wolfe to help them stop the extortions as their lawyers have not been successful in resolving the situation.

Wolfe takes the case and immerses himself in literary analyses. He discovers common features of various writers' vocabularies and phrasings. It is quite amusing to read about a writer's predilection for using 'aver' rather than 'say' or about a fondness for the phrase 'not for nothing.' Wolfe and Archie Goodwin have to read books like The Moth That Ate Peanuts, which gives Mr. Stout an opportunity to write about various things literary. Naturally, at some point the events get more serious and Mr. Wolfe gets quite exasperated with the difficulty of the case, which even leads to quite uncharacteristic behavior for him, like a fit of roaring and bellowing.

There are some twists in the plot - the most unexpected one happens in a cloister (this is not a spoiler!) - but the denouement is styled conventionally for Wolfe mysteries. The suspects are compelled to gather in Wolfe's office and he pontificates over the proceedings that lead to exposing the guilty party.

Alas, despite the initially fascinating setup of literary nature, this is not a particularly good installment of the Wolfe saga. The novel overwhelms the reader with too many details and too many characters, which prevents the natural charm of Goodwin/Wolfe stories from shining through.

Two-and-a-half stars.


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