SLEUTHS SHOULD BE BEAUTIFUL.
Dear Sir: The Nero Wolfe Mystery Novel, Before I Die, by Rex Stout (April, p. 157), had me shaking in my boots, but I have a complaint. I like my favorite detectives to be suave and 'hand, some, whereaS, according to the author, Nero weighs between 310 and 390 (and what a spread that is!). Not only is he fat, but ugly as well, to judge from the illustration. Couldn't your artist pare off a few pounds and make him look a little more like. Humphrey Bogart—just for us girls?
EMILY BRANDWYNE
Chicago, Ill.
The following comment on the famous sleuth's lack of personal pulchritude was supplied by Author:
Dear Sir: About Nero as exhibited for the eye in the April AMERICAN, he may not be pretty as a picture, but whoever supposed he was? Not me, and certainly not Archie. In my opinion, for what it may be worth, it's a darned good likeness.
REX STOUT
Brewster, N. Y.
If you like Nero Wolfe you may want to read another classic mystery series from the 1940s, the Amy Brewster Mysteries by Sam Merwin Jr. A Matter of Policy features Amy Brewster, who has been called the female Nero Wolfe.
"Amy Brewster is a cigar-smoking, 300-pound lawyer-financier introduced by Sam Merwin Jr. in 1945. Upper-class but unfeminine, she is enlisted by friends to solve crimes. She appears in Knife in My Back
), Message from a Corpse and A Matter of Policy. Amy Brewster is defined against the genre's stereotypes, particularly the femme fatale: she is not attractive, not home-bound, and not submissive, either conversationally or professionally." -Frances A. DellaCava and Madeline H. Engel, Female Detective in American Novels, A Bibliography and Analysis of Serialized Female Sleuths (1993).Remember, you can get A Matter of Policy for Kindle at Amazon FREE right now, for a short time only.
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