My main complaint with this book is that the villain's only trait is that he is a member of the Communist Party.

I understand that this was written in 1949 and that was the mindset of the time, but in these more (hopefully) enlightened days, shouldn't a villain be a little more of a complete person than simply being an enemy of the US in the Cold War (now defunct)?

I wouldn't mind if there were other traits, such as bad behavior of some sort (but a plot point is that you can't tell who the guy is because he acts just like everybody else; they only have a picture to go on), but there is none of that.

A man just comes in at the beginning and says "I want you to find this man. He's a Communist," and off we go. That's the whole plot, and while Wolfe is his usual brilliant self in deducing the identity of the "Commie," I was just not carried along by the story until very near the end, when I simply let the momentum of it take me to the solution.

Certainly, in my opinion, not one of the best of the series. But Wolfe is still Wolfe (even if he is spouting uncharacteristic patriotism), and Archie is still wisecracking and flirting, and I still enjoyed myself, most of the time. And getting Wolfe out of the brownstone is always good for a bit of fun. All of which leads me to the conclusion that even mediocre Rex Stout is better than no Rex Stout.

Nero Wolfe and his young assistant, Archie (or is it Andrew?) Goodwin are challenged into identifying American communists, and the apparent murderer of one. Archie's snide comments about his lazy boss are the most amusing part of the story. The writing style is much more mature than most modern mysteries, but many details in the story (e.g., Mr X) were never addressed in the resolution. Be warned, you will be surprised. I enjoyed the technique of bringing all the suspects together for the final confrontation scene.

I don't understand the reviewers who complain about loose ends. Do you normally expect the second book in a trilogy to wrap everything up? I'm guessing that those reviewers didn't realize that Zeck appears in three books (And Be a Villain, The Second Confession, and In the Best of Families, in that order). At any rate, any ends left loose in this book are tied up in the third.

But even if you know and care nothing about Zeck, you should still be able to enjoy this books; he does not dominate it. Wolfe and Archie are both in top form, and the ploy Wolfe uses to expose the murder is both enjoyable and clever.