Triple Jeopardy by Rex StoutMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Shorts are good when your brain doesn't have the stamina for an entire book. I hadn't read these stories before . . . or so I thought. Turns out I'd read the third one decades ago when my brain was intact and the memories of the story remained. It felt like I was rereading that story without quite remembering the details, and I solved it without trying. That's not normal for me today after brain injury. The first two stories were totally new to me, and I didn't see whodunnits.
Because of visualizing and verbalizing, I pay more attention to details like names and occupations, which means I can spot during verbalizing what’s left out. And it meant that reading a Nero Wolfe mystery using this method, I learnt something new about Archie. I continued to enjoy building up the big picture of his character across this book and, previously, Murder by the Book.
I liked how Archie took centre stage in Cop Killer. It felt like I got to know this character I've been reading for donkey's years in a whole new 3-dimensional way.
These stories were written in the 1950s, using the long-since forgotten vernacular of the time. Like with Mr. Flood's Last Resort, I resorted to Google to look up terms. Unlike with Jess Kidd's book, Google was useless. I had to infer from the names and terms I did know who Horny Gallagher was. I figured the mob.
Escaping back in time to the 1950s and seeing concerns of the time from the future, my time, plucked me out of the pandemic and gave me a break from the relentless bad news. Knowing how their concerns panned out, felt like I was standing for a moment on solid ground. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
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