The Broken Vase by Rex Stout
Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)
It is early 1941 in New York City. Gentleman farmer and private eye Tecumseh Fox is rich enough to afford giving a grant of $2,000.00 (about $35,000 in our 2021 dinero) to a young gifted fiddler to purchase a Stradivarius. Though not a music lover, Fox attends the Carnegie Hall concert for the premier performance of the fiddler on his prize violin. Unmusical Fox notices that the audience is shocked and leaving in droves. Fox is told that the violin’s tone didn’t sound at all right. The young violinist, in front of witnesses, takes his own life during the intermission.
Case closed, but a killing occurs that makes Fox think the suicide and the murder are linked. The rich mother of the murder victim hires Fox to investigate the circumstances and find out who committed the murder. Fox has a series of interviews and adventures that make for amusing reading, especially when one’s brain is too tired for more challenging reading matter.
Rex Stout is better known and more respected for his novels starring Nero Wolfe, rotund orchid fancier and PI to the rich and famous. Critics and fans agree that his other detective creations – Tec Fox, Alphabet Hicks, and Theodolinda ‘Dol’ Banner – are not up to the Wolfe-Archie stories, especially the novellas.
But I don’t care. As a fan of between the wars whodunnits, I have a soft spot for vintage characters, society settings, and squads of suspects. To his credit, Stout always plays fair with the reader, giving enough information to the reader to figure it out by the reveal. Also, like Conan Doyle was able to in the Holmes stories, Stout captures an insular world and feeling of timelessness – affluent Manhattan, mid-20th century – a quality that I hope discerning readers will enjoy for years to come.
