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    Unavailable
    Before Midnight
    Unavailable
    Before Midnight
    Unavailable
    Before Midnight
    Audiobook5 hours

    Before Midnight

    Written by Rex Stout

    Narrated by Michael Prichard

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Cheaters never prosper, but Nero Wolfe encounters one who kills trying. At the Pour Amour perfume riddle contest, a million dollars goes to the contestant who can answer five questions. Someone doesn't like the heat of competition, so he murders the contest founder and steals the answers to the riddles. Now Wolfe has to sniff down a trail of clues that leads disturbingly close to home.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 2, 2007
    ISBN9781415937723
    Unavailable
    Before Midnight
    Author

    Rex Stout

    Rex Todhunter Stout (1886 – 1975) was an American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe and assistant Archie Goodwin. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century. Rex passed away in 1975.

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    Reviews for Before Midnight

    4/5

    159 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      When the marketing genius behind a perfume manufacturer's promotional contest is found murdered and the answers to the contest's questions stolen, the advertising firm turns to Nero Wolfe to find the culprit. Solid entry in the series, if not transcendent, but some fine comic moments in the motley assortment of contestants gathered for the contest finale.
    • 4/5
      A silly story, but fun (if you can ignore the murders, of course). Liked it better on second read.
    • 4/5
      A perfumier's marketing campaign goes awry when the brain behind the adverts is murdered.
    • 3/5
      A perfume maker has a contest that ends in murder. Nero is asked, not to solve the murder, but to find the stolen answers to the contest.
    • 5/5
      I love the opening --Archie Goodwin discussing with Nero Wolfe an advertising campaign contest for a perfume called Pour Amour --it involve solving rhymed clues about women known in history for their use of cosmetics.--when the rising advertising genius who designed the campaign is murdered after flaunting the answers to the five final questions (which vanish) , the five finalists are suspects. But the advertising agency involved is more worried about how to save the contest, and tat is what they hire Wolfe to solve --not the murder. If the lost list had een the only copy, I think it would have been more interesting, but there is anohter, which is handed over to Wolfe. Spoiler: He uses it to solve the problem of the contest, and appears to deny doing so to Archie, but that turns out to be a dubious verbal subterfuge, the only part of the story I dislike.Note: rereading this shortly after :Christmas Party" I noted that both involved poison by cyanide in Pernod; perhaps it was useful as a reasonably distinctive drink, but not improbably rare. I cataloged this just before And Be a Villain, which also involves cyanide, though not in Pernod.
    • 4/5
      My crime fiction education is probably very neglected in that I have never read Rex Stout, although I have seen the occasional television story.The prelude to the Kindle version is an interesting introduction to the two main characters Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, and gave me some tips about what to look for in their relationship. The basic idea of the plot was a good one - a marketing campaign that involves a quiz, that has involved millions country wide and has now been narrowed down to 5 contestants. And then the final questions are distributed and the question creator takes a slip of paper from his wallet and waves it about claiming that on the paper are written the answers to the final questions. Before the night is out, he is dead and the wallet is missing.Nero Wolfe takes a commission from the cosmetics company behind the contest to investigate, not the murder, but who took the wallet. He is careful to say he is not undertaking a murder investigation to keep his nose clean with the police whom he has crossed many times. If the murderer though happens to be the same person as the one who took the wallet, so be it.This is a relatively short book but a sign of how little it interested me was how long it felt. It felt very technical, lots of carefully worked out, logical, scenarios that left me cold. I made it to the end, just, but I doubt I will trouble to read another Nero Wolfe. That's probably anathema to his fans but his writing is just not for me.
    • 2/5
      The Nero Wolfe stories are so strong on style, but distressingly short on substance. I've found the same reaction whether watching the tv series or listening to an audiobook version - I find that I just can't pay attention to the foolish plots and ridiculous caricatures of clients and other hangers on. But I keep on trying, because there's just something about that stlye
    • 5/5
      I was a little taken aback by the premise of a perfume competition but the book flowed very well and Wolfe and Archie were as excellent as usual.