The Father Hunt

Rex Stout

Archie Goodwin's companion, Lily Rowan, has hired a new assistant. Amy Denovo is pretty, young, and fatherless. She asks Goodwin to help her find her unknown father. Archie refuses unless she hires Nero Wolfe since Archie works for Wolfe without freelancing. Amy has a legacy from her father - a bank account of the money sent to her mother every month of Amy's life until her mother died in a hit and run car accident earlier in the year. With that Amy can afford Wolfe's fee and give the detectives a starting place to find her father.

Soon Goodwin is following up leads he and Wolfe find. One of the richest men in the city seems to be involved. He is a retired banker with few friends and many enemies. Rival banking executives are glad to "give him up" to Wolfe. Yet he is not Amy's father. The obvious next choice also doesn't seem to be a candidate for hidden fatherhood. Who is Amy's father? What is being hidden?

Hurray for Rex Stout! Just about the time you, the reader, know where the author is going, he throws a twist into the story. The Nero Wolfe novels are true detective fiction, with the clues being spread along with the red herrings. This is one of his later books, so the 1960's are ever present in the background. The time period helps set the book but certainly doesn't overwhelm. This is a worthwhile read.

Fer-de-Lance
The League of the Frightened Men
The Rubber Band
The Red Box
Too Many Cooks
Some Buried Caeser
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
Curtains for Three
Murder by the Book
Triple Jeopardy
Prisoner's Base
The Golden Spiders
Three Men Out
The Black Mountain
Before Midnight
Three Witnesses
Might As Well Be Dead
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
The Death of a Doxy
The Father Hunt
Death of a Dude
Please Pass the Guilt
A Family Affair
Death Times Three

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