AND BE A VILLAIN by Stout, Rex - 1948

New York: The Viking Press, 1948. Stout's now legendary fictional NYC private detective, Nero Wolfe, genius, beer lover, and orchid grower puts the NYPD to work to help him solve one of his most complicated cases. Wolfe must find out how a race track tout, being interviewed on a national radio program, was poisoned, how the poison was put into a capped soft drink bottle and delivered to the victim instead of one of the other people on the show, and then, who did it. Book Club edition, early printing. Text is age-tanned, o/w text and boards are clean and unmarked, tight and square. The dustjacket shows some edgewear, including a nickel-sized chip from top edge of back panel and a half-inch tear on the lower edge of the same panel but is otherwise whole with all lettering and design elements intact. A quite decent reading copy.. Book Club. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good.