Too Many Clients Rex Stout Series: Nero Wolfe [34] Published: 1960 Tags: Vintage Mystery
Vintage Mysteryttt
SUMMARY:
One oversexed executive, twenty beautiful suspects--Too Many Clients!. When Nero Wolfe's bank balance threatens to dip below sea level, Archie goes in search of a client--and stumbles across a murder mystery carrying either a very large fee, or a very long stretch in jail.
Too Many ClientsRex StoutSeries: Nero Wolfe [34] Published: 1960 Tags: Vintage Mystery
Vintage Mysteryttt
SUMMARY:
One oversexed executive, twenty beautiful suspects--Too Many Clients!. When Nero Wolfe's bank balance threatens to dip below sea level, Archie goes in search of a client--and stumbles across a murder mystery carrying either a very large fee, or a very long stretch in jail.
The Rex Stout Library
Ferde-Lance The League of Frightened Men The Rubber Band The Red Box Too Many Cooks Some Buried Caesar Over My Dead Body Where There's a Will Black Orchids Not Quite Dead Enough The Silent Speaker Too Many Women And Be a Villain The Second Confession Trouble in Triplicate In the Best Families Three Doors to Death Murder by the Book Curtains for Three Prisoner's Base Triple Jeopardy The Golden Spiders The Black Mountain Three Men Out Before Midnight Might As Well Be Dead Three Witnesses If Death Ever Slept Three for the Chair Champagne for One And Four to Go Plot It Yourself Too Many Clients Three at Wolfe's Door The Final Deduction Gambit Homicide Trinity The Mother Hunt A Right to Die Trio for Blunt Instruments The Doorbell Rang Death of a Doxy The Father Hunt Death of a Dude Please Pass the Guilt A Family Affair Death Tiroes Three The Hand in the Glove Double for Death Bad for Business The Broken Vase The Sound of Murdei Red Threads The Mountain Cat M REX STOUT Too Many Clients Introduction by Malcolm Forbes, Jr. BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK ? TORONTO ? LONDON ? SYDNEY ? AUCKLAND [i| anerowolfe mystery This book is fiction. No resemblance is intended between any character herein and any person, living or dead; any such resemblance is purely coincidental. TOO MANY CLIENTS A Bantam Crime Line Book / published by arrangement with The Viking Press, Inc. PUBLISHING HISTORY Viking edition published October 1960 Bantam edition published March 1962 Bantam reissue edition / April 1994 crime line and the portrayal of a boxed 'cl' are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright ? 1960 by Rex Stout. Introduction copyright ? 1994 by Malcolm Forbes, Jr. Cover art copyright ? 1994 by Torn Hallman. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: The Viking Press, Penguin USA, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as 'unsold and destroyed' to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this 'stripped book.' ISBN 0563254235 Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words 'Bantam Books' and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OPM 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 FR1;Introduction We are entering an era when the already considerable appeal of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries will grow exponentially. This new age is symbolized by the microchip, which is extending the reach of the human brain the way machines extended the reach of human muscle during the industrial revolution. We will be reminded as never before that the source of all wealth and progress is the human brain, not material things. This has always been true, but the microchip will make it so plain that even the most obtuse will have to acknowledge it. In ages past, wealth was thought to lay in material things: armies, gold, jewels, land, and, until a little over a century ago, slaves. You can't touch and feel software the way you can a slab of steel or a bar of silver. Yet in the hands of daring entrepreneurs these pieces of plastic can create riches beyond the imaginings of even the greediest Croesus. They enabled a poor southerner, Sam Walton, to storm and humble the seemingly impregnable corporate fortresses of Sears, K Mart, and others. The secret of Wal-Mart's success was using sophisticated inventory software that enabled it to respond immediately to marketplace changes and to simplify magnificently the layers of middlemen between stores and suppliers. vi Introduction The information age will change our lives as dramatically as did the machine age. This era is emasculating centralized bureaucracies, giving unprecedented powers to countless millions of individuals. It will also make possible a cultural renaissance. The coarsening of American life over the past half-century will begin to be reversed. With highdefinition, interactive television on countless thousands of channels, we will be able to nurture interests--music, books, collecting, movies, golfing, carpentry, etc.--in a way that is utterly impossible with today's boob tube, where viewers are reduced to couch potatoes watching channels that can achieve profit- sized audiences only by appealing to the lowest common denominator. What does all this have to do with obese, orchidloving misogynist Nero Wolfe and milk-drinking, smart-alecky Archie Goodwin? More than you might imagine. What better symbol of the power of the mind, of intellectual capital, than Nero Wolfe? Centuries ago his corpulence would have made his stay on earth a short one. He couldn't hunt or physically joust with his foes. Today, increasingly, mind matters more than matter. Wolfe's ability to fight crime with his intellect will be less 'fictional' in the information age. And as technology empowers individuals, readers will better appreciate Wolfe's determination to make the universe revolve around him and his unalterable daily schedule instead of around the agendas of others. The time of topdown, military-style corporations, schools, and governments is coming to a close. But Wolfe's continued appeal will be based on more than his intellect. He is cultivated. He has taste. He is educated. He has standards; perhaps not always 'politically correct' but deeply felt. His misogyny Introduction vii may offend some, yet most women will appreciate his impeccable manners and his unwillingness to behave like a dirty old man. In short, Wolfe has character and integrity. And as these virtues enjoy a revival--which they will, thanks in no small part to a high technology that shatters the passivityinducing, take-it-or-leave-it dominance of network TV--his popularity will grow. He stands as a rebuke to today's moral relativism. Similarly, the Wolfe mysteries will enjoy renewed appreciation for their refusal to pander to baser instincts such as sex and violence. Rex Stout treats the reader as an intelligent being rather than a lustful lout longing for erotic stimulation or
