Please Pass the Guilt


Please Pass the Guilt is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1973. Unusually for a Nero Wolfe story, which mostly take place very near the time of publication, this novel is set in 1969, though it was originally published in 1973.

Plot introduction

As a favor to Dr. Edwin Vollmer, Wolfe agrees to find information about a case from Vollmer's friend's crisis intervention center. A man with the alias "Ronald Seaver" has attended the clinic, given no information, but spoken of having blood on his hands no one can see. Through trickery, Wolfe and Goodwin learn that this man is actually Kenneth Meer, an employee at the CAN broadcast network. An executive at the network, Peter Odell, has been killed in a bomb attack. Odell's widow believes that one of his rivals murdered him, and hires Wolfe to find proof.

Characters

  • Archie Goodwin - Confidential secretary to Nero Wolfe
  • Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, and Orrie Cather - Private investigators hired by Wolfe to help on the case
  • Cass R. Abbot - President on CAN
  • Peter J. Odell - Vice President in charge of development; killed by a bomb.
  • Madeline Odell - Surviving wife of Peter Odell.
  • Charlotte Haber - Secretary to Mrs. Odell
  • Amory Browning - Vice President in charge of programming.
  • Helen Lugos - Browning's secretary
  • Kenneth Meer - Browning's chief assistant
  • Theodore Falk - Wall Street Lawyer
  • Sylvia Venner - CAN employee
  • James Farquhar - Banker and yacht owner
  • Dennis Copes - CAN employee who may have wanted Meer's job
  • Inspector Cramer - NYPD homicide
  • Lieutenant Rowcliff - NYPD homicide
  • Nasir ibn Bekr - Possible mid-east terrorist

    Note

In chapter two we learn that Wolfe has hired a team of three people from Midtown Home Service Corporation to help Fritz clean the brownstone. Andy and Sam bring along Lucile. Wolfe is mildly upset when he learns that a woman has come to help clean his house.

Publication history

"Nero Wolfe talks in a way that no human being on the face of the earth has ever spoken, with the possible exception of Rex Stout after he had a gin and tonic," said Michael Jaffe, executive producer of the A&E TV series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery. "Readers of the Wolfe saga often have to turn to the dictionary because of the erudite vocabulary of Wolfe and sometimes of Archie," wrote Rev. Frederick G. Gotwald.
Nero Wolfe's vocabulary is one of the hallmarks of the character. Examples of unfamiliar words — or unfamiliar uses of words that some would otherwise consider familiar — are found throughout the corpus, often in the give-and-take between Wolfe and Archie.