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A review by hannahstohelit
Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout
4.25
This was a very fun one, though I do love that the Nero Wolfe books are NYC-based and missed that here. The setting itself was kind of generic, but I enjoyed the culinary backdrop, the characters were fun, Nero Wolfe had a lot more opportunity to shine here than he does in other books in which the narrative follows Archie through the streets of NYC... overall a very good time.
The race stuff was... I don't know how else to put it but "interesting." Like, seemingly well meaning in certain respects but also with a LOT of unnerving racial language in the mouths of non-Nero Wolfe characters (including Archie). It's clear that all of it was purposeful and considered by Stout- which cuts both ways, because it means that he knows what he's doing as much when he has Wolfe call a young Black man "Mr" as he does when he has Archie using the N-word. Definitely inextricable from the book as a whole in terms of its overall tone- I think of it as kind of like Dorothy L Sayers's Unnatural Death (which coincidentally I also took out of the library this week but didn't get to), where characters' racism against an innocent Black man is specifically invoked due to the fact that the murderer weaponized it to frame him. Doesn't make the manifestations of that less unnerving or ill-advised looking back, but comparing it to what the author is likely to have intended (whether it worked or not) is interesting. It seems weird to say that I think that the whole thing worked well in its integration into the mystery and its solution in general, but I do actually think it was, whether it was "worth it" or not.
A very well constructed, if maybe a bit overly reliant on racial elements which now read as kind of disturbing, read.
I will say- I'm adding on a quarter of a point just because this is probably the first golden-age type mystery novel I've read with recipes in the back! I eat kosher so couldn't make many of them even if I had the taste/inclination but there are one or two I'm curious about. I just think it's neat.
The race stuff was... I don't know how else to put it but "interesting." Like, seemingly well meaning in certain respects but also with a LOT of unnerving racial language in the mouths of non-Nero Wolfe characters (including Archie). It's clear that all of it was purposeful and considered by Stout- which cuts both ways, because it means that he knows what he's doing as much when he has Wolfe call a young Black man "Mr" as he does when he has Archie using the N-word. Definitely inextricable from the book as a whole in terms of its overall tone- I think of it as kind of like Dorothy L Sayers's Unnatural Death (which coincidentally I also took out of the library this week but didn't get to), where characters' racism against an innocent Black man is specifically invoked due to the fact that the murderer weaponized it to frame him. Doesn't make the manifestations of that less unnerving or ill-advised looking back, but comparing it to what the author is likely to have intended (whether it worked or not) is interesting. It seems weird to say that I think that the whole thing worked well in its integration into the mystery and its solution in general, but I do actually think it was, whether it was "worth it" or not.
A very well constructed, if maybe a bit overly reliant on racial elements which now read as kind of disturbing, read.
I will say- I'm adding on a quarter of a point just because this is probably the first golden-age type mystery novel I've read with recipes in the back! I eat kosher so couldn't make many of them even if I had the taste/inclination but there are one or two I'm curious about. I just think it's neat.