Where There's a Will

So I can't be certain, since it was twenty some years ago, but I think this was the first I ever read–and while I don't remember being hooked right away, I did beat it to the library to grab another one. As I recall, the copy of the book my aunt loaned me had a balloon-y cartoonish drawing of Wolfe shoving his face into an orchid under some 70's era kitchen green and orange stripes. Never judge a book by its cover indeed.

We are introduced right away to the remarkable Hawthorne sisters–April, May and June; a writer (married to the Secretary of State), a college president and one of Broadway's brightest stars. Their wealthy brother has just died in a hunting accident and left behind a most curious will. His sister's didn't get the inheritance they'd been promised, instead they'd each been left a piece of fruit. That didn't bother them too much–except for appearance's sake (although May, the college prez, is distraught that her school didn't get what it'd been promised); what bother's the sisters is the way his wife wasn't taken care of, and that his mistress (a poorly kept secret at best) received the overwhelming bulk of the estate. The sisters want Wolfe to prevail upon the mistress to return much of her inheritance to the more “rightful” heirs. Wolfe, for reasons I can't understand, takes the case. Naturally, it's not too long into the case before someone's killed, and that's when things really start to get interesting.

On the whole, the male characters (other than the regulars) in this novel are pretty dull, but most of the female characters rate a novel all their own. The three Hawthorne sisters have all striking personalities and a realistic dynamic between the three. There's an interesting detail or two about the widow that I'll save for those who want to read it. The daughter of the writer and the Secretary of State, Sara Hawthorne, grabs my attention each time I read it. Even if I can rarely remember how much peril she will be in by the end of the book–I always care a bit more about her welfare than I do similar Stout characters. As the sole female descendant of the legendary sisters, she feels the weight of expectation to do something as remarkable to the world at large, while being convinced that she's not of the same caliber as her mother and aunts. To make up for that, she tries harder to be unique, to make her mark, to distinguish herself than the others probably had to–and in doing so endears herself to readers as well as to Wolfe and Archie.

A staple of P.I. fiction involves interactions between police and the private dicks–usually (after the first novel or three), there's some sort of grudging mutual respect and assistance. Yet typically, there's a mixture of trust and distrust–the P.I.'s withhold information and or straight-out lie to the cops and vice versa–teeter-tottering between the two extremes. Sometimes this feels forced, or even obligatory–even from skilled authors. Stout almost always pulls it off successfully (I can't think of an exception), and generally entertainingly (thanks to Archie's narration if nothing else). Wolfe has laid all his cards on the table and Inspector Cramer is convinced Wolfe's up to something and makes more than one biting comment in that regard, leading Archie to observe: “It's a funny and sad thing, the purer our motives are, the worse insults we get.” A sign of Stout's ability is that he can keep something this tried and true fresh.

You've got a very wide and colorful cast of characters, a dash of political intrigue, and Wolfe out of the office on a case. What's not to like?

A line or two that made me grin, both revealing a good deal about all involved.

Wolfe frowned at her. He hated fights about wills, having once gone so far as to tell a prospective client that he refused to engage in a tug of war with a dead man's guts for a rope.

[After Archie is informed by Fritz that Wolfe has left on business:] I hung up and went back out to the car and told Fred:
“A new era has begun. The earth has turned around and started the other way. Mr. Wolfe has left home in a taxicab to work on a case.”
“Huh? Nuts.”
“Nope. As Fritz says, honest for God. He really has. So if you'll–“
“But [expletive:], Archie. He'll get killed or something.”
“Don't I know it?”