July 9th, 2007
Review – The Second Confession
The Second Confession
by Rex Stout
James Sperling’s younger daughter has expressed an interest in a young man named Louis Rony and Sperling doesn’t like him. He is convinced that Rony is a communist and to a dedicated wealthy capitalist like Sperling, being a communist is about the worst sin a man is capable of committing. He wants Wolfe to find sufficient proof so that he can get his daughter to drop Rony. Wolfe is reluctant to take the case but in the end he does, after all Sperling is willing to pay a lot of money.
An acquaintance of Wolfe objects to his taking the case and uses machine guns to send a message to Wolfe through his orchard room. Although the damage is extensive, Wolfe never runs away from a case but he is in luck. Mr. Rony, the target of his investigation manages to get himself killed at Mr. Sperling’s house while Archie is visiting. The case suddenly changes as Wolfe’s friend no longer objects to the investigation and in fact supports it. But who killed Mr. Rony? Sperling wants to know because it happened in his home and his family members are suspected by the police.
The fun in this one is Archie’s flirting with Madeline, the older daughter of Sperling. Madeline and Archie have a mutual attraction that is fun to follow as it develops and causes problems for Archie before Rony’s death because one fall-back plan was to get the younger daughter, Gwen, to dump Rony in favor of Archie. All of this becomes moot, of course, when Romy is killed with Nero Wolfe’s car.
The problems in this story have to do with the mystery although you can ignore the mystery and the story is fine. But what is Sperling’s wife and son searching for in Rony’s room? And what does it have to do with the mystery? There a few other red herrings that are never explained but I’ll skip them so as not to reveal too many clues. Overall, I would say that this is one of the weaker stories I have read so far. But it is still a quick and fun read. Stout at his worst is still better than a lot of other writers at their best.
Tags: book review, Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout
