The Rodeo Murder Explained

The Rodeo Murder
Author:	Rex Stout
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Series:	Nero Wolfe
Genre:	Detective fiction
Published In:	Three at Wolfe's Door
Publisher:	Viking Press
Media Type:	Hardcover
Pub Date:	April 29, 1960

"The Rodeo Murder" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in April 1960 in the short-story collection Three at Wolfe's Door (Viking Press).

Plot summary

A party at Lily Rowan's Park Avenue penthouse includes a roping contest between some cowboy friends, with a silver-trimmed saddle as the prize. One of the contestants is at a disadvantage when his rope is missing. When it is found wound more than a dozen times around the neck of the chief backer of the World Series Rodeo, Lily asks Nero Wolfe to sort out the murder.

Publication history

"The Rodeo Murder"

• 1961, Argosy, January 1961 (as "The Penthouse Murder")
• 1968, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September 1968
• 1973, Ellery Queen's Anthology, Fall–Winter 1973

Three at Wolfe's Door

• 1960, New York: The Viking Press, April 29, 1960, hardcover^[1]

Contents include "Poison à la Carte", "Method Three for Murder" and "The Rodeo Murder"

In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of Three at Wolfe's Door: "Orange cloth, front cover and spine printed with dark brown. Issued in a mainly green-brown dust wrapper."^[2]

In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Three at Wolfe's Door had a value of between $200 and $350. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.^[3]

• 1960, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild), July 1960, 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]
• 1961, London: Collins Crime Club, January 20, 1961, hardcover
• 1961, New York: Bantam #A-2276, August 1961
• 1995, New York: Bantam Crime Line September 1995, paperback, Rex Stout Library edition with introduction by Margaret Maron
• 1997, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. October 31, 1997, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
• 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline June 9, 2010, e-book

Notes and References

1. Townsend, Guy M., Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing, 1980. 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. New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, 2001. Limited edition of 250 copies.
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. 34
4. Penzler, Otto, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I. New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, 2001. Limited edition of 250 copies.