The Rubber Band
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| Author | Rex Stout |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Nero Wolfe |
| Genre(s) | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Farrar & Rinehart |
| Released | April 9, 1936 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 308 pp. |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-76309-1 |
| Preceded by | The League of Frightened Men |
| Followed by | The Red Box |
The Rubber Band is the third Nero Wolfe mystery by Rex Stout. Prior to its publication in 1936 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., the novel was serialized in six issues of The Saturday Evening Post (February 29–April 4, 1936). Appearing in one 1960 paperback edition titled To Kill Again, The Rubber Band was also collected in the omnibus volume Five of a Kind (Viking 1961).
[edit] Plot summary
Archie books two new clients on the same day, and before the day is over Wolfe has to choose which to keep and there are more than two crimes to untangle. The client he keeps in the end is a beautiful young woman, but it's Wolfe who reads her Hungarian poetry, not Archie.
The novel introduces Lieutenant Rowcliffe, not one of the NYPD's finest (in the opinion not only of Wolfe but Cramer). Rowcliff's search for Clara Fox in the brownstone earns Wolfe's enmity, which lasts until the final Wolfe novel in 1975.
