Over My Dead Body (novel)
Encyclopedia
Over My Dead Body is the seventh Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective, created in 1934 by the American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe's confidential assistant Archie Goodwin narrates the cases of the detective genius. Stout wrote 33 novels and 39 short stories from 1934 to 1974, with most of them set in New York City. Wolfe's...

 detective novel by Rex Stout
Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...

. The story first appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine (September 1939). The novel was published in 1940 by Farrar & Rinehart
Farrar & Rinehart
Farrar & Rinehart was a United States book publishing company founded in New York. Farrar & Rinehart enjoyed success with both nonfiction and novels, notably, the landmark Rivers of America Series and the first ten books in the Nero Wolfe corpus of Rex Stout...

, Inc.

Plot introduction

When a Montenegrin female comes to the brownstone to ask for help, a minor rumpus about stolen diamonds at a fashionable fencing academy quickly develops into international intrigue and murder. Nero Wolfe's long buried and jealously guarded past comes to light.

In Over My Dead Body Rex Stout begins to explore Wolfe's Montenegrin background. By 1939, of course, the Wolfe/Goodwin books had become an established series but Wolfe's youth had yet to be clarified. Stout starts to do so in this book by ringing in a number of European visitors, including some from Montenegro; the backdrop is the maneuvers of the Axis and Allied powers to dominate Yugoslavia. In the first chapter Wolfe tells FBI Agent Stahl that he was born in the United States — a declaration at odds with all other references in the corpus. Stout's authorized biographer John McAleer explained the reason for the anomaly:
Rex told me that even in 1939 Wolfe was irked by the FBI's consuming curiosity about the private business of law-abiding citizens. In consequence, Wolfe felt under no constraint to tell the truth about himself when interrogated by Stahl. There was, however, another reason for Wolfe's contradictory statements about his place of origin. Rex explained: "Editors and publishers are responsible for the discrepancy. ... In the original draft of Over My Dead Body Nero was a Montenegrin by birth, and it all fitted previous hints as to his background; but violent protests from The American Magazine, supported by Farrar & Rinehart, caused his cradle to be transported five thousand miles. ... I got tired of all the yapping, and besides it seemed highly improbable that anyone would give a damn, or even, for that matter, ever notice it."

Plot summary

Carla Lovchen and Neya Tormic, two young women from Montenegro, come to Wolfe's office asking his assistance. Miss Tormic has been accused, falsely she says, of the theft of diamonds from the locker room of a fencing studio where she works. She cannot afford Wolfe's large fees, but Miss Tormic has a document showing that Wolfe adopted her when she was an infant, at the time of World War I. Wolfe has not seen her since.

Wolfe undertakes to investigate Miss Tormic's predicament, and sends Archie to the fencing studio. At the studio, Archie is gathering information when a body is discovered: that of a British citizen who has just provided Miss Tormic with an alibi for the diamond theft. The body has been pierced by an épée – but because of the rapier's blunt point, this is thought at first to be an impossibility.

After the police arrive, Archie notices that an object has been stashed in the pocket of his topcoat. Concerned that he's being set up, Archie escapes the premises without examining the object. Back at Wolfe's house, the object is found to be a bloodstained fencing glove, in which a col de mort has been wrapped. A col de mort, it turns out, is a sharp metal fitting that can be attached to the end of an épée, so as to turn a relatively safe weapon into a deadly one.

Wolfe and Archie conceal the glove and the fitting in a loaf of Italian round, which Fritz covers with chocolate icing and keeps in the refrigerator. Subsequently, the evidence is turned over to Inspector Cramer, who decides that his best chance to solve the murder is to camp out with Wolfe and keep an eye on him. Uncharacteristically, Wolfe makes no objection.

A patron of the studio, Madame Zorka, phones Wolfe to tell him that she saw someone conceal the glove in Archie's coat and threatens to inform the police. Archie arranges to pick her up for a conversation with Wolfe, but Zorka's gone missing.

Yet another murder ensues, this time of a thinly-disguised Nazi who contributes to Miss Tormic's alibi. After a considerable amount of flailing about, Wolfe manages to get the dramatis personae together in his office where, in the manner that became standard in the series, he exposes the murderer and motive.

The unfamiliar word

In most Nero Wolfe novels and novellas there is an unfamiliar word, usually spoken by Wolfe. Over My Dead Body contains at least four examples, including the following:
  • Obloquy. Chapter 2.
  • Pipe. Chapter 3. "Baby doll with a new silk dress and pipe the earrings." Shorter OED provides as the 12th definition for v.t. and v.i.: Watch, notice, look (at), slang and dialect first appearing middle 19th century.
  • Consilience. Chapter 5.
  • Supposititious. Chapter 7.

Cast of characters

  • Nero Wolfe — Famous detective
  • Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's young assistant, and the narrator of all Wolfe stories
  • Carla Lovchen — Beautiful Montenegrin girl
  • Neya Tormic — Carla's emotional friend and Wolfe's client
  • Nikola Miltan — Macedonian
    Macedonians (ethnic group)
    The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...

     épée champion, owner of a fencing and dancing studio in Manhattan where Tormic and Lovchen work
  • Jeanne Miltan — His wife
  • John P. Barrett — Wealthy international banker, involved with intrigues and secret transactions involving royal holdings in Bosnia
  • Donald Barrett — His son
  • Madame Zorka — Couturière, client of Miltan's studio, and business associate of Donald Barrett
  • Inspector Cramer — Head of the New York Police Department's homicide squad
  • Nat Driscoll, Rudolph Faber, Percy Ludlow — Fencing students at Miltan's studio
  • Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, Orrie Cather — Freelance detectives employed by Wolfe

Times change

Some material in Over My Dead Body would in later decades be thought inappropriate at the very least. There is a minor character who is described in a way that brings Steppin Fetchit to mind. And Stout puts seven consecutive ethnic epithets in Cramer's mouth, at least five of which would in later years be considered offensive.

Fair use

The following excerpt from Over My Dead Body was used as the quotation in a New York Times Sunday acrostic: "When an international financier is confronted by a holdup man [with a gun], he automatically hands over not only his money and jewelry but also his shirt and pants, [because] it doesn't occur to him that a robber might draw the line somewhere." (The bracketed words did not appear in the acrostic.)

Reviews and commentary

  • Isaac Anderson, The New York Times Book Review
    The New York Times Book Review
    The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...

    (January 7, 1940) — There is more of Archie Goodwin than of Nero Wolfe in this book, and that is all to the good, for, although Wolfe is Archie's boss and the one who does the heavy thinking, Archie is, unless our guess is wide of the mark, the person whom readers of the Nero Wolfe stories take to their hearts. If Nero is the brains of the concern, Archie is its arms and hands and legs. When Nero wants something done, he does not need to tell Archie how to do it. Archie will figure that out for himself, and the thing is as good as done, however difficult the assignment may be. In the murder case with which this story deals there are international complications which make things unusually difficult. The police and the G-men are in it too, but the best that they can do is to watch Nero Wolfe and wait for him to come through with the solution. The book is full of surprises for everybody concerned, including not only the reader but also the police, Archie and even Nero Wolfe himself. Read one chapter of this book and you will need no urging to go on with it.
  • Jacques Barzun
    Jacques Barzun
    Jacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...

     and Wendell Hertig Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime
    A Catalogue of Crime
    A Catalogue of Crime, by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, is a critique of crime fiction first published in 1971. A revised edition was published in 1989 by Barzun after the death of Taylor in 1985. The book was awarded a Special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in...

    — This is the tale in which we learn that Nero has been married, has adopted a daughter in his native Montenegro, and has become a U.S. citizen in order to enjoy peace and democracy. The plot hinges on international and domestic secrets but it is sober and sound. Archie, Cramer, and the rest of the cast are in top form, and Nero is noticeably more outspoken and impulsive than he subsequently became.
  • J. Kenneth Van Dover, At Wolfe's Door — The first half dozen Wolfe novels established the detective as an original creation. Over My Dead Body begins the long line of pleasant entertainments in which Wolfe and Archie exploit the familiar formulas.

A Nero Wolfe Mystery (A&E Network)

An adaptation of Over My Dead Body concluded the first season of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
A Nero Wolfe Mystery is a television series adapted from Rex Stout's classic series of detective stories that aired for two seasons on the A&E Network. Set in New York City in the early 1950s, the stylized period drama stars Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin...

(2001–2002). Sharon Elizabeth Doyle and Janet Roach wrote the teleplay for the episode, which was directed by Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...

. "Over My Dead Body" made its debut in two one-hour episodes airing July 8 and 15, 2001, on A&E.

Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...

 is Archie Goodwin; Maury Chaykin
Maury Chaykin
Maury Alan Chaykin was an American-born Canadian actor. Best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, he was also known for his work as a character actor in many films and on television programs.-Personal life:...

 is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) are Bill Smitrovich
Bill Smitrovich
-Personal life:Bill Smitrovich was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Anna and Stanley William Zmitrowicz, a tool and die maker. Bill is a graduate of the University of Bridgeport and holds an MFA from Smith College . He is married to Shaw Purnell from Pittsburgh, PA...

 (Inspector Cramer), Ron Rifkin
Ron Rifkin
Ron Rifkin is an American actor. He is best-known for his roles as Arvin Sloane on the spy drama Alias and as Saul Holden on the American family drama Brothers & Sisters.-Personal life:...

 (Nikola Miltan), Colin Fox
Colin Fox (actor)
Colin Fox is a Canadian actor. His acting credits include playing Jean Paul Desmond and Jacques Eloi Des Mondes in Strange Paradise , as well as voice work in various animated series, and in other roles in film, television and on the stage...

 (Fritz Brenner), James Tolkan
James Tolkan
James S. Tolkan is an American actor, often cast as a strict, overbearing, bald-headed authority figure.-Personal life:He was born in Calumet, Michigan, the son of Ralph M. Tolkan, a cattle dealer, and attended the University of Iowa, Coe College, the Actors Studio and Eastern Arizona College...

 (Percy Ludlow), George Plimpton
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.-Early life:...

 (John Barrett). Kari Matchett
Kari Matchett
Kari Matchett is a Canadian television and film actress. She played Mariel Underlay in Invasion, Lisa Miller in 24, and Kate Filmore in the cult favorite science fiction movie Cube 2: Hypercube. She currently appears in the USA television series Covert Affairs.-Early years:Matchett was born in...

 (Carla Lovchen), Debra Monk
Debra Monk
Debra Monk is an American actress, singer, and writer.Monk was born in Middletown, Ohio. She was voted "best personality" by the graduating class at Wheaton High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. She graduated from Frostburg State University in 1963...

 (Madame Zorka), Francie Swift
Francie Swift
Francie Swift is an American actress best known for her versality and the wide variety of roles she has played.Swift was born in Amarillo, Texas and attended Tascosa High School...

 (Neya Tormic), Trent McMullen
Trent McMullen
Trent McMullen is a Canadian actor known for his portrayal of freelance detective Orrie Cather in the A&E TV original series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery , and the series pilot, The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery . In 2010 McMullen starred in Ed Gass-Donnelly's second feature film Small Town Murder...

 (Orrie Cather), Conrad Dunn
Conrad Dunn
Conrad Dunn is an American actor. He began his screen career with the role of Francis "Psycho" Soyer in Stripes . Working for some ten years under the name George Jenesky, he achieved soap-opera stardom in Days of our Lives as Nick Corelli, a misogynistic pimp who evolved from bad guy to romantic...

 (Saul Panzer), Robert Bockstael (Agent Stahl), Nicky Guadagni
Nicky Guadagni
Nicky Guadagni is a Canadian actress who has worked on stage, radio, film and television.-Career:Originally from Montreal, Nicky Guadagni majored in drama at Dawson College and went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Her first role after graduation was playing Miranda, with...

 (Jeanne Miltan), Hrant Alianak (Nat Driscoll), R.D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins), Richard Waugh (Rudolph Faber), Dina Barrington (Belinda Reade) and Boyd Banks
Boyd Banks
Boyd Banks is a Canadian stand-up comedian known for doing edgy material, and actor.-Biography:Banks has appeared in such films as Bruiser , Wild Iris , Dawn of the Dead , Phil the Alien , Land of the Dead , Cinderella Man , Diary of The Dead and Pontypool...

 (Duncan Barrett).

In addition to original music by Nero Wolfe composer Michael Small
Michael Small
Michael Small was an American film score composer best known for his scores to thriller movies such as The Parallax View, Marathon Man, and The Star Chamber. Relatively few of his scores are available on compact disc...

, the soundtrack includes music by Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

 (opening sequence), Ib Glindemann
Ib Glindemann
Ib Glindemann is a Danish jazz musician, the big band leader of the Ib Glindemann Orchestra . When in Europe, saxophonist Stan Getz was a frequent guest star of the orchestra.-External links:*...

, Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....

 and David Steinberg.

In North America, A Nero Wolfe Mystery is available on Region 1 DVD from A&E Home Video (ISBN 0-7670-8893-X). "Over My Dead Body" is divided into two parts as originally broadcast on A&E.

"Over My Dead Body" is one of the Nero Wolfe episodes released on Region 2 DVD in the Netherlands by Just Entertainment, under license from FremantleMedia
FremantleMedia
FremantleMedia, Ltd. is the content and production division of Bertelsmann's RTL Group, Europe's second largest TV, radio, and production company...

 Enterprises. A Nero Wolfe Mystery — Serie 2 (2010) was the first DVD release of the international version of the episode, which presents "Over My Dead Body" as a 90-minute film with a single set of titles and credits. Included is a brief scene in which Archie and Fritz put Madame Zorka to bed in the south room. "Fritz is a real gentleman," Archie says in voiceover. "She may not have arrived with a nightie or a toothbrush, but for the honor of the house, by golly, she got orchids." The Netherlands release has optional Dutch subtitles and, like the A&E DVD release, presents the episode in 4:3 pan and scan
Pan and scan
Pan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown within the proportions of a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the composition's most important aspects...

 rather than its 16:9
16:9
16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...

 aspect ratio for widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....

 viewing.

Publication history

  • 1939, The American Magazine, September 1939, abridged
  • 1940, New York: Farrar & Rinehart
    Farrar & Rinehart
    Farrar & Rinehart was a United States book publishing company founded in New York. Farrar & Rinehart enjoyed success with both nonfiction and novels, notably, the landmark Rivers of America Series and the first ten books in the Nero Wolfe corpus of Rex Stout...

    , January 3, 1940, hardcover
In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, Otto Penzler
Otto Penzler
Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.-Biography:...

 describes the first edition
Edition (book)
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed “from substantially the same setting of type,” including all minor typographical variants.- First edition :...

 of Over My Dead Body: "Turquoise cloth, front cover and spine printed with dark blue; rear cover blank. Issued in a full-color pictorial dust wrapper … The first edition has the publisher's monogram logo on the copyright page."
In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Over My Dead Body had a value of between $4,000 and $7,500.
  • 1940, New York: Omnibook Magazine
    Omnibook Magazine
    Omnibook Magazine was published from 1938 until 1957 by Omnibook Inc., 76 Ninth Avenue, New York, New York. It was edited by Maxwell M Geffen and Victor W. Knauth and featured "authorized abridgements of current best-selling books."...

    , February 1940, abridged
  • 1940, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1940, hardcover
  • 1940, London: Collins Crime Club
    Collins Crime Club
    The Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 6, 1930 to April 1994. Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be...

    , October 7, 1940, hardcover
  • 1943, New York: Lawrence E. Spivak
    Lawrence E. Spivak
    Lawrence Edmund Spivak was an American publisher and journalist who was best known as the co-founder, producer and host of the prestigious public affairs program Meet the Press...

    , Jonathan Press Mystery #J6, 1943, abridged, paperback
  • 1945, New York: Avon #62, 1945, paperback
  • 1955, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books #1106, 1955, paperback
  • 1965, London: Panther, February 1965, paperback
  • 1979, New York: Jove #M4865, March 1979, paperback
  • 1992, London: Scribners (Macdonald) "by arrangement with Bantam Books" ISBN 0 356 20110 4, hardcover
  • 1993, New York: Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-23116-2 December 1993, paperback
  • 2007, Auburn, California: The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters ISBN 1-57270-730-5 March 28, 2007, audio CD (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
  • 2010, New York: Bantam ISBN 978-0-307-75608-4 July 21, 2010, e-book
    E-book
    An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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