Book Review | If Death Ever Slept. Rex Stout

If Death Ever Slept by Rex Stout
(on Goodreads)
My rating ★★★★☆

If Death Ever Slept is a classic detective novel I've read for the Back to the Classics reading challenge. It's one of many books in the Nero Wolfe series. Nero Wolfe is a brilliant detective, who prefers to solve the mysteries from his home, while his assistant Archie Goodwin does all the investigations and reports to him. Nero Wolfe is very moody and has his own little habits and rules, which he doesn't like to be broken. And he has a greenhouse where he grows all sorts of beautiful orchids.

In this novel the great detective has to work for a millionaire Otis Jarrell, who wants him to find enough proof to discredit his daughter-in-law so that his son would eventually divorce her. Otis hates his daughter-in-law and calls her a snake. He is sure that because of her one of his friends snatched a deal right from under his nose earning a lot of money.

Nero doesn't want to get into marital issues, but he still wants the money Otis is offering him, so he makes it Archie's responsibility to look into the case. Archie goes into the Jarrell household pretending to be Otis's new secretary and starts looking around. And then, when you least expect it, someone gets murdered.

Archie and Nero are two very likable characters. They joke around and argue all the time, but still get the work done brilliantly. It was funny to see Nero Wolfe trying to get rid of the case all throughout the book, but still solving the mystery in the end. Their interaction with the cops was also fun to read.

Till the end of the book I wasn't able to identify the murderer, so the ending was a bit of a surprise.

All in all I liked the novel with it's moderate pace and clever jokes. I'm looking forward to picking up some other stories about Nero Wolfe.