"Murder Is No Joke" was published in book form with this title in "And Four To Go," but was originally titled "Frame-Up for Murder" and serialized in "The Saturday Evening Post." Later an expanded version with alternate characterization was reprinted in the book "Death Times Three." "Murder Is No Joke" brings together past and present. A member of the French Resistance during World War II was at that time married to another member. After the war, he learns that his wife and her two brothers had been traitors to the cause. He murders both men, but the wife escapes him. He then comes to the United States where he becomes, in the words of Wolfe, “an illustrious dressmaker” and finds that his ex-wife who, with a different name, has insinuated herself in his operation. She will be found dead in her office after a heated telephone exchange with Wolfe, who ends up nailing two killings on one murderer.
Author
Rex Todhunter Stout (1886 – 1975) was an American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975 (A Family Affair). The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century.
