THREE MEN OUT by Rex StoutMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I wasn't sure I wanted to read another set of short stories, but this one was the next ebook available at the library in the Nero Wolfe series that I hadn't read. Being plunged into the middle of dialogue, freaking my brain out with the cognitive challenge of trying to figure out what was going on, didn't allay my concerns. Then I began to feel like I'd read it before. I had. My mother used to subscribe to Ellery Queen. My grandmother read it first. Then my mother. Then me. Back then, when my brain was uninjured and reading like breathing to me, I read everything. So I'm positive I read this story. Unfortunately, my memory was unreliable. The mix of knowing I'd read this while misremembering threw me out of the story, and I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have.
The second story -- no memory interference. Phew! I was chuffed that I figured out part of the pattern before Wolfe did. And I had an inkling whodunnit. But I still struggled with my lateral thinking and so missed a detail. The novel idea in this story kept me engaged, and I enjoyed it more than the first story.
I struggled with reading comprehension with the third story. Fatigue and heat, I guess. But I loved how the final chapter, after the big reveal of whodunnit, showed an aspect of Wolfe and Archie's relationship I hadn't seen before. In few words, it said so much about these characters. What a way to end a book.
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