''The Silent Speaker'' is a
Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe is a brilliant, obese and eccentric fictional armchair detective created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe was born in Montenegro and keeps his past murky. He lives in a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in Ne ...
detective novel
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...
by
Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout (; December 1, 1886 – October 27, 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and ...
, first published by the
Viking Press
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquire ...
in 1946. It was published just after World War II, and key plot elements reflect the lingering effects of the war: housing shortages and restrictions on consumer goods, including government regulation of prices, featuring the conflict between a federal price regulatory body and a national business association, paralleling the conflicts between the
Office of Price Administration
The Office of Price Administration (OPA) was established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. The functions of the OPA were originally to control money (price contr ...
and the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) is the largest lobbying group in the United States, representing over three million businesses and organizations. The group was founded in April 1912 out of local chambers of commerce at the urgin ...
and the
National Association of Manufacturers
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is an advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C., with additional offices across the United States. It is the nation's largest manufacturing industrial trade association, representing 14,000 s ...
.
''The Silent Speaker'' was Stout's first full-length Nero Wolfe novel since ''
Where There's a Will'' in 1940. "Thereafter, though he would continue writing for another thirty years, his stories would all be Nero Wolfe stories," wrote biographer John McAleer. "He liked Wolfe and Archie. After all, they were an essential part of himself. 'During the war years I missed them,' he told me."
Plot introduction
The head of a Federal agency is bludgeoned to death just before giving a speech to an industrial association. Public opinion quickly turns against the association, which is thought to have been involved in the murder. The association hires Wolfe to find the murderer in hope of ending the public relations disaster.
Plot summary
Cheney Boone, the Director of the Bureau of Price Regulation (BPR) is beaten to death with a monkey wrench shortly before a speech he is to deliver at a gathering of the National Industrial Association (NIA), a prominent
conglomeration of big business interests. Considerable antagonism exists between the two parties, and the public begins to hold the NIA responsible for Boone's murder. This attracts the attention of Nero Wolfe, who is facing financial ruin, and with the help of Archie Goodwin he launches a scheme to manipulate the NIA into hiring his services to find the killer.
Wolfe arranges a meeting between the principal witnesses to the case—Boone's widow and niece, acting BPR director Solomon Dexter and researcher Alger Kates, the NIA executive committee, and select members of law-enforcement including Inspector Cramer and Sgt. Purley Stebbins. The meeting soon degenerates into chaos and bickering, but Wolfe is intrigued by the absence of Phoebe Gunther, Boone's private secretary and the last person to see him alive, and orders Archie to bring her to him for questioning. Archie finds Phoebe at an apartment owned and occupied by Alger Kates and, after a flirtatious battle of wits, persuades her to meet Wolfe. Phoebe claims that she was given a leather case full of confidential dictation cylinders shortly before Boone's death, but has misplaced them.
The next day, Wolfe receives a telegram informing him that surveillance of Don O’Neill, the chairman of the NIA's dinner committee, will have to be suspended—surveillance that neither he nor Archie ordered. Archie therefore follows O’Neill to Grand Central Station, where O’Neill retrieves the leather case from the parcel room, and intercepts him. Faced with the choice of going to the police or to Wolfe, O’Neill is forced to surrender the case, which contains ten dictation cylinders. It becomes clear when listening to them that none of them are the real confidential cylinders, however. When Wolfe calls another meeting of the principal witnesses, Phoebe once again fails to appear—but this time, her body is discovered by the front step of Wolfe's home, brutally bludgeoned with a length of rusty pipe.
It is clear that Phoebe's murderer is one of the principal witnesses, and that this person is likely to have also murdered Boone. After nine of the ten cylinders are discovered in Phoebe's apartment, both Wolfe and Inspector Cramer become convinced that the missing cylinder is key to the murder, but political pressure forces Cramer's superiors to replace him with Inspector Ash. Ash issues a warrant for Wolfe and Archie and tries to bully information out of Wolfe, leading to a violent confrontation in the police commissioner's office. Although Wolfe stubbornly refuses to assist Ash, once the warrants are vacated he reveals why the cylinder is so important—on it, Boone identifies his own murderer. Phoebe, a passionate BPR supporter, intended to reveal it once the NIA had been damaged as much as possible by the controversy over Boone's death, but managed to alert the murderer that she was aware of his identity and was killed for her silence.
After a meeting with Boone's widow, where she confirms that Phoebe did indeed possess the cylinders, Wolfe takes the unprecedented step of terminating his contract with the NIA and returning the group's $30,000 fee. As this removes the protection he has received through the status of his clients and will begin a barrage of police and media interest in him, he fakes a mental breakdown in order to hold the police off and buy time until the cylinder is found. Before the police can expose his deception, Wolfe realises that the only place Phoebe could have hidden the cylinder and known it was safe was Wolfe's own office. He thus has Archie, Fritz and Theodore search the room for the cylinder, where it is found concealed in a bookcase. When played, both Wolfe and Cramer are vindicated; the murderer is revealed to be Alger Kates, who was bribed by Don O'Neill to pass on confidential BPR information and was exposed on the cylinder as a traitor. Having heard the cylinder, Phoebe discovered his guilt but revealed her knowledge to Kates when after pressuring him to return numerous items, possessing sentimental value to Boone's widow, that were stolen from the corpse to fake a theft.
The novel ends with Archie confronting Wolfe, having realized that Wolfe staged the cylinder's discovery and in fact knew it was in his office the whole time. He is simply unsure of whether Wolfe waited so long for "art's sake," or simply to ensure that he could collect a $100,000 reward offered by the NIA instead of the $30,000 fee. Wolfe does not disagree with either hypothesis, but suggests another motivation: having come to respect Phoebe Gunther's intelligence and determination, Wolfe decided to continue as far as possible her objective of causing damage to the NIA. In gratitude for saving his career, Inspector Cramer timidly gives Wolfe an orchid for a gift.
The unfamiliar word
In most Nero Wolfe novels and novellas, there is an unfamiliar word, usually spoken by Wolfe. ''The Silent Speaker'' contains just this one:
*Gammer. Chapter 29.
Cast of characters
*Nero Wolfe — The private investigator
*Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's assistant (and the narrator of all Wolfe stories)
*Doctor Vollmer — Wolfe's neighbor and practitioner of choice when medical treatment is needed
For the BPR:
* Cheney Boone — Director of the BPR (compare to the real-life
Chester Bowles
Chester Bliss Bowles (April 5, 1901 – May 25, 1986) was an American diplomat and ambassador, governor of Connecticut, congressman and co-founder of a major advertising agency, Benton & Bowles, now part of Publicis Groupe. Bowles is best known f ...
, head of the OPA from 1943 to 1946)
* Solomon Dexter — Acting Director of the BPR following Cheney Boone's death
*Phoebe Gunther — Boone's confidential secretary, and second in command at the BPR in all but title
*Alger Kates — A researcher for the BPR
*Mrs. Cheney Boone — Widow of the murdered BPR director
*Nina Boone — Boone's niece
For the NIA:
*Frank and Edward Erskine — Father and son members of the NIA's Executive Committee
*Messrs. Breslow and Winterhoff — Other members of the Executive Committee
*Don O'Neill — Chairman of the dinner committee for the NIA event at which Boone was murdered
*Hattie Harding — Assistant Director of Public Relations
For New York law enforcement:
*Inspector Ash, Inspector Cramer, Sergeant Purley Stebbins, Commissioner Hombert and District Attorney Skinner
Sentiment
The reader is given the opportunity to see how much Wolfe's attitude toward sentiment changes over a brief span of time. In ''The Silent Speaker'', he tells Archie, "One of your most serious defects is that you have no sentiment." Only two years later, in ''
And Be a Villain'', he tells Archie, "You would sentimentalize the multiplication table."
Reviews and commentary
* Isaac Anderson, ''
The New York Times Book Review
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'' (October 27, 1946) — In this new Nero Wolfe story we are introduced to two organizations whose feelings toward each other are somewhat less than tepid. The NIA, composed of tycoons of high and low degree, is dedicated to the preservation of the American Way of Life. The BPR, a Government bureau, is believed by NIA to have for its chief purpose the throttling of Free Enterprise — which, as everybody knows, is just another name for the aforesaid A. W. of L. The chairman of BPR is fatally conked with a monkey wrench just before he was to have addressed a meeting of NIA — and there are those who believe that NIA has resorted to murder when other attempts to curb BPR have failed. Such a case as this is right up Nero Wolfe's alley. He even neglects his beloved orchids for three whole days. Whether he also neglects his beer deponent sayeth not. It is a humdinger of a story with Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin at their uproarious best.
*
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and ...
and Wendell Hertig Taylor, ''
A Catalogue of Crime
''A Catalogue of Crime'' is a critique of crime fiction by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, first published in 1971. The book was awarded a Special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1972. A revised and enlarged edition ...
'' — The least likely suspect is well hidden, Wolfe does some thinking, and Archie is Archie. Not too much wrangling with the police, and in truth one of Rex Stout's best in the semi-demi form.
[Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. ''A Catalogue of Crime''. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ]
* ''
Saturday Review of Literature
''Saturday Review'', previously ''The Saturday Review of Literature'', was an American weekly magazine established in 1924. Norman Cousins was the editor from 1940 to 1971. Under Norman Cousins, it was described as "a compendium of reportage, ess ...
'' (November 9, 1946) — Head of government price regulating bureau monkey-wrenched out of life just before industrialists' banquet. Enter much-missed Nero Wolfe. Slightly subdued Archie Goodwin narrates Nero's adventures with inimical groups; which include second murder, sharp-edged satire, and Dupinesque solution. Welcome home, Nero.
*
Terry Teachout
Terrance Alan Teachout (February 6, 1956 – January 13, 2022) was an American author, critic, biographer, playwright, stage director, and librettist.
He was the drama critic of ''The Wall Street Journal'', the critic-at-large of '' Commentary ...
, "Forty years with Nero Wolfe" (January 12, 2009) — Rex Stout's witty, fast-moving prose hasn't dated a day, while Wolfe himself is one of the enduringly great eccentrics of popular fiction. I've spent the past four decades reading and re-reading Stout's novels for pleasure, and they have yet to lose their savor ... It is to revel in such writing that I return time and again to Stout's books, and in particular to ''
The League of Frightened Men
''The League of Frightened Men'' is the second Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. The story was serialized in six issues of ''The Saturday Evening Post'' (June 15–July 20, 1935) under the title ''The Frightened Men''. The novel was publis ...
'', ''
Some Buried Caesar
''Some Buried Caesar'' is a detective novel by American writer Rex Stout, the sixth book featuring his character Nero Wolfe. The story first appeared in abridged form in ''The American Magazine'' (December 1938), under the title "The Red Bull", it ...
'', ''The Silent Speaker'', ''
Too Many Women'', ''
Murder by the Book
''Murder by the Book'' is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout published in 1951 by the Viking Press, and collected in the omnibus volume ''Royal Flush'' (1965).
Plot summary
Inspector Cramer takes the unprecedented step of approaching Nero ...
'', ''
Before Midnight
''Before Midnight'' is a 2013 American romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The sequel to ''Before Sunrise'' (1995) and ''Before Sunset'' (2004), it is the third instal ...
'', ''
Plot It Yourself
''Plot It Yourself'' (British title ''Murder in Style'') is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1959, and also collected in the omnibus volume ''Kings Full of Aces'' (Viking 1969).
Plot introduction
A gro ...
'', ''
Too Many Clients
''Too Many Clients'' is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1960, and later collected in the omnibus volume ''Three Aces'' (Viking 1971).
Plot introduction
A man who identifies himself as Thomas Yeager, he ...
'', ''
The Doorbell Rang
''The Doorbell Rang'' is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1965.
Plot introduction
Nero Wolfe is hired to force the FBI to stop wiretapping, tailing and otherwise harassing a woman who gave away 1 ...
'', and ''
Death of a Doxy'', which are for me the best of all the full-length Wolfe novels.
* J. Kenneth Van Dover, ''At Wolfe's Door'' — Wolfe's return to the novel-length mystery is a strong one: the plot is solid and the characters — especially Phoebe Gunther — are interesting. There are also strong ideological implications to the action. Miss Gunther refers to the capitalists of the NIA as "the dirtiest gang of pigs and chiselers on earth." Solomon Dexter calls them "the dirtiest bunch of liars and cutthroats in existence." Archie and Wolfe evidently share this estimation. Wolfe deliberately prolongs the public rancor against the NIA until events force him to disclose the criminal and to accept the NIA's gratitude and money.
Adaptations
''A Nero Wolfe Mystery'' (A&E Network)
''The Silent Speaker'' was adapted for the second season of the
A&E TV series ''
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
''Nero Wolfe'' is a television series adapted from Rex Stout's series of detective stories that aired for two seasons (2001–2002) on A&E. Set in New York City sometime in the 1940s–1950s, the stylized period drama stars Maury Chaykin as N ...
'' (2001–2002). The only episode to be both written and directed by ''Nero Wolfe'' executive producer
Michael Jaffe
Michael Muir Jaffe (born January 9, 1945) is an American TV and film producer. He started out in the business with his father, producer and former AFTRA lawyer Henry Jaffe (1907–1992). His mother was actress Jean Muir. He has more than 120 ...
, "The Silent Speaker" made its debut in two one-hour episodes airing July 14 and 21, 2002, on A&E.
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton (born August 16, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He is the youngest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at age 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in ''Ordinary People ...
is Archie Goodwin;
Maury Chaykin
Maury Alan Chaykin (July 27, 1949 – July 27, 2010) was an American–Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, as well as for his work as a character actor in many films and television programs.
Personal lif ...
is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) are
Debra Monk
Debra Monk (born February 27, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and writer, best known for her performances on the Broadway stage. She earned her first Tony Award for the 1993 production of '' Redwood Curtain'' and won an Emmy Award for se ...
(Mrs. Boone),
Colin Fox (Fritz Brenner),
Bill Smitrovich
William Stanley Zmitrowicz Jr. (born May 16, 1947), known professionally as Bill Smitrovich ( ), is an American actor.
Personal life
Smitrovich was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Anna (née Wojna) and Stanley William Zmitrowicz, a t ...
(
Inspector Cramer),
Cynthia Watros
Cynthia Michele Watros (born September 2, 1968) is an American actress recognized for her roles in both daytime and primetime television. In 1994, she was cast in the regular role of Annie Dutton on ''Guiding Light'', which earned her the Day ...
(Phoebe Gunther),
Joe Flaherty
Joseph Flaherty (born June 21, 1941) is an American actor, writer, and comedian. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy '' SCTV'' from 1976 to 1984 (on which he also served as a writer), and as Harold Weir on ''Freaks and G ...
(Dr. Vollmer),
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) was an American writer. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found ''The Paris Review'', as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He was also known for " ...
(Winterhoff),
James Tolkan
James Stewart Tolkan (born June 20, 1931) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Mr. Strickland in ''Back to the Future'' (1985) and ''Back to the Future Part II'' (1989), and as Marshall Strickland in ''Back to the Future Part ...
(FBI Agent Richard Wragg),
Conrad Dunn
Conrad Dunn is an American actor. He began his screen career with the role of Francis "Psycho" Soyer in ''Stripes'' (1981). Working for some ten years under the name George Jenesky, he achieved soap-opera stardom in ''Days of Our Lives'' as Nick Co ...
(Saul Panzer),
Fulvio Cecere
Fulvio Cecere (born March 11, 1960) is a Canadian actor and filmmaker.
Early life
Born in Canada, he moved to Hawthorne, New Jersey as a teenager and attended Hawthorne High School, graduating as part of the class of 1978. Cecere attended Sou ...
(Fred Durkin), David Schurmann (Frank Erskine),
Christine Brubaker (Hattie Harding), Bill MacDonald (Breslow),
Matthew Edison
Matthew Edison (born August 22, 1975) is a Canadian actor known for his roles in ''Fortunate Son'', ''The Detail,'' and ''Nero Wolfe'', and as Cameron Coleman in the web series '' Vought News Network: Seven on 7 with Cameron Coleman'' and the t ...
(Edward Erskine),
R.D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins),
Nicky Guadagni
Nicky Guadagni (born August 1, 1952) is a Canadian actress who has worked on stage, radio, film and television.
Life and career
Originally from Montreal, Nicky Guadagni majored in drama at Dawson College and went on to train at the Royal Academ ...
(Mrs. Cramer/Secretary),
Richard Waugh (Don O'Neill), Manon von Gerkan (Nina Boone),
Julian Richings
Julian Richings (born 30 August 1956)''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at Ancestry.com is a British-Canadian character actor. He has appeared in over 225 films and television series.
Career
After touring t ...
(Alger Kates), Robert Bockstael (Solomon Dexter), Gary Reineke (Hombert), Steve Cumyn (Skinner) and Doug Lennox (Inspector Ash).
In addition to original music by ''Nero Wolfe'' composer
Michael Small
Michael Small (May 30, 1939 – November 24, 2003) was an American film score composer known for his scores to the movies '' Klute'', '' The Parallax View'', '' Marathon Man'', and ''The Star Chamber''.
Personal life
Small was born in New York ...
, the soundtrack includes music by
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein ( rus, Антон Григорьевич Рубинштейн, r=Anton Grigor'evič Rubinštejn; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who became a pivotal figure in Russian culture when he founded the Sai ...
(titles) and Dick Walter.
''A Nero Wolfe Mystery'' is available on DVD from A&E Home Video (). The bonus 16:9 letterbox versio
of "The Silent Speaker" is the only episode of ''Nero Wolfe'' that A&E Home Video has made available in
widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
format. "The Silent Speaker" is one of three telefilms initially aired in two parts that A&E released as a "double episode," with a single set of titles and credits.
Publication history
The first edition of ''The Silent Speaker'' marks the change from Stout's previous publisher,
Farrar & Rinehart
Farrar & Rinehart (1929–1946) was a United States book publishing company founded in New York. Farrar & Rinehart enjoyed success with both nonfiction and novels, notably, the landmark Rivers of America Series and the first ten books in the Ner ...
, to The
Viking Press
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquire ...
, which would remain his (first edition) publisher for the remainder of his writing career.
*1946, New York: The Viking Press, October 21, 1946, hardcover
:In his limited-edition pamphlet, ''Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I'',
Otto Penzler
Otto Penzler (born July 8, 1942) is a German-born American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.
Biography
Born in Germany to a German-American mother and a German father, Penzler moved to The B ...
describes the
first edition
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants.
First edition
According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a b ...
of ''The Silent Speaker'': "Green cloth, front cover and spine printed with yellow lettering and red rules; rear cover blank. Issued in a mainly green and yellow pictorial dust wrapper."
:In April 2006, ''Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine'' estimated that the first edition of ''The Silent Speaker'' had a value of between $400 and $750. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.
[Smiley, Robin H., "Rex Stout: A Checklist of Primary First Editions." ''Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine'' (Volume 16, Number 4), April 2006, p. 33]
*1946, Toronto:
Macmillan
MacMillan, Macmillan, McMillen or McMillan may refer to:
People
* McMillan (surname)
* Clan MacMillan, a Highland Scottish clan
* Harold Macmillan, British statesman and politician
* James MacMillan, Scottish composer
* William Duncan MacMillan ...
, 1946, hardcover
*1946, New York: Detective Book Club #55, December 1946, hardcover
*1947, New York:
Armed Services Edition
Armed Services Editions (ASEs) were small paperback books of fiction and nonfiction that were distributed in the American military during World War II. From 1943 to 1947, some 122 million copies of more than 1,300 ASE titles were distributed to s ...
#1222, January 1947, paperback
*1947, London:
Collins Crime Club
Collins Crime Club was an imprint of British book publishers William Collins, Sons and ran from 6 May 1930 to April 1994. Throughout its 64 years the club issued a total of 2,012in "The Hooded Gunman -- An Illustrated History of Collins Crime ...
, March 10, 1947, hardcover
*1948, New York:
Bantam #308, October 1948, paperback
*London: Collins (White Circle) #215c, not dated, paperback
*1956, London: Fontana #150, 1956, paperback
*1967, New York, Bantam F3477, second printing August 1967, paperback
*1976, New York, Bantam 10067-X, ninth printing December 1976, paperback
*1983, New York: Bantam Crimeline September 1983, second edition, ninth printing, paperback
*1994, New York: Bantam Crimeline February 1994, paperback, Rex Stout Library edition with introduction by
Walter Mosley
Walter Ellis Mosley (born January 12, 1952) is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private inv ...
*2002, Auburn, California: The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters May 2002, audio cassette (unabridged, read by
Michael Prichard)
*2009, New York: Bantam Dell Publishing Group (with ''
Black Orchids
''Black Orchids'' is a Nero Wolfe double mystery by Rex Stout published in 1942 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. Stout's first short story collection, the volume is composed of two novellas that had appeared in abridged form in '' The American Magazine ...
'') August 25, 2009, trade paperback
*2011, New York: Bantam Crimeline February 16, 2011,
e-book
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
References
External links
*
Script(PDF) for "The Silent Speaker," written by Michael Jaffe (December 7, 2001)
* Farkash, Michael R.
''Hollywood Reporter'', July 12, 2002
{{DEFAULTSORT:Silent Speaker
1946 American novels
Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout
Viking Press books
American novels adapted into films