Homicide Trinity Explained

Homicide Trinity
Author:	Rex Stout
Cover Artist:	Bill English
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Series:	Nero Wolfe
Genre:	Detective fiction
Publisher:	Viking Press
Release Date:	April 26, 1962
Media Type:	Print (hardcover)
Pages:	182 pp. (first edition)
Oclc:	1087613
Preceded By:	The Final Deduction
Followed By:	Gambit

Homicide Trinity is a collection of Nero Wolfe mystery novellas by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1962. The book comprises three stories:

• "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo", first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine #220 (March 1962)
• "Death of a Demon", first serialized in three issues of The Saturday Evening Post (June 10, 17 and 24, 1961)
• "Counterfeit for Murder", first serialized as "The Counterfeiter's Knife" in three issues of The Saturday Evening Post (January 14, 21 and 28, 1961)

Publication history

• 1962, New York: The Viking Press, April 26, 1962, hardcover^[1]

In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of Homicide Trinity: "Blue cloth, front cover stamped in blind; spine printed with deep pink; rear cover blank. Issued in a mainly blue dust wrapper."^[2]

In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Homicide Trinity had a value of between $150 and $350. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.^[3]

• 1962, Toronto: Macmillan, 1962, hardcover
• 1962, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild), August 1962, hardcover

The far less valuable Viking book club edition may be distinguished from the first edition in three ways:

• The dust jacket has "Book Club Edition" printed on the inside front flap, and the price is absent (first editions may be price clipped if they were given as gifts).

• Book club editions are sometimes thinner and always taller (usually a quarter of an inch) than first editions.

• Book club editions are bound in cardboard, and first editions are bound in cloth (or have at least a cloth spine).^[4]
• 1963, London: Collins Crime Club, February 18, 1963, hardcover
• 1966, New York: Bantam #F-3118, February 1966, paperback
• 1993, New York: Bantam Crime Line August 1993, paperback, Rex Stout Library edition with introduction by Stephen Greenleaf
• 1997, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. October 31, 1997, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
• 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline July 7, 2010, e-book

Notes and References

1. Townsend, Guy M., Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980, New York: Garland Publishing;), p. 86. John McAleer, Judson Sapp and Arriean Schemer are associate editors of this definitive publication history.
2. Penzler, Otto, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II (2001, New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, limited edition of 250 copies), p. 14
3. Smiley, Robin H., "Rex Stout: A Checklist of Primary First Editions." Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine (Volume 16, Number 4), April 2006, p. 35
4. Penzler, Otto, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, pp. 19–20