Bad For Business: A Tecumseh mystery (1 of 3)
Rex Stout, (c) 1940.
I think all three of the Fox booksare better than they are generally considered
to be. Fox is a nicely conceived
character (even if his name is fairly obviously borrowed from Nero Wolfe. The owner a gourmet food company, Arthur
Tingley, is murdered in his office, and his niece is assaulted. His adopted son (but there’s a surprise
coming about him), a financier with an interest in a rival food company, and a
VP in yet another food company have been on the premises. Fox, a PI whose home base is in upstate New
York (but all the of his recorded cases—the others are Double For Death and The
Broken Vase—take place in New York City.
I think all three of the Fox books are well above average. [As are the
other non-Wolfe bools--The Hand in the Glove (Dol Bonner—who appears sporadically
in the Wolfe bools); The Red Threads (Inspector Cramer, and The Sound of Murder
(Alphabet Hicks). The crucial clue takes a while for Fox to recognize, but
overall the story is taut and moves right along.
