Red Threads - Rex Stout

Originally published in 1939, Red Threads is a solo adventure (the only one, as far as I know) for Inspector Cramer, a police detective who features more in a supporting role in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series. It's an unusual crime thriller that very much has a distinctive character and some originality - somewhat like Nero Wolfe's Montenegro-born outsider perspective on the country - in its exploration of various aspects of American history, character and society. The mystery Cramer investigates - like Wolfe not quite from the front seat - takes in American history, high society, business interests and indeed native American culture and customs, all held together with a red thread.

First of all of course there is a murder. Val Carew, a wealthy socialite who made his money gambling and then took the same risks on the stock market, has been killed at the tomb of his late native American Indian wife. It's no ordinary tomb, but one specially constructed to bathe her preserved body in sunlight. A regular visitor to the tomb, Carew has been killed by a couple of blows and then scalped. The police are at a loss; there are few clues and perhaps a reluctance on their part to intrude or cast suspicion on very important people. The only real clue that might lead somewhere is the red thread found in the hand of the dead man,  a thread of a rare material with historical links.

That's the connection to the clothing industry referenced in the opening sequence of the book, and that connection deepens when Jean Farris, the partner in a clothes and fashion designer business, also almost becomes a second victim. On the same estate, in same social circle, she is struck by a blow to the head in the garden. She is not killed, but the clothes she is wearing, which contained red bayeta thread - the same as the one found in the hand of Carew - are taken from her. The rare thread has a historical significance and provenance. The bayeta yarn, coloured with red Persian dye, comes from the uniforms of Spanish soldiers, but was taken from dead troops and woven into blankets by Cherokee Indians.

In terms of where the motivations for the killing of Val Carew and the acquiring of this rare material, it's tied up - somehow, but in no obvious way - with social, business and romantic complications. Jean has a romantic inclinations towards Guy Carew, the son of the deceased man who will inherit his father's fortune, but being of a more humble origin (her humility only stretching so far, we later discover), she is uncertain that this notion is reciprocated. Indeed there is already some gossip going around that Guy has been romantically linked in the past to the woman that his father was due to marry, Portia Tritt: something that points suspicion his way.

Inspector Cramer has a lot of important people to question, people who have business and romantic interests they want to keep secret and keep from the press. Cramer's skill in Red Threads is in how he sets about breaking down those alibis. He's tough and persistent in his determination to get to the truth, but he is more than matched by Jean Farris, the clothes designer, who is what would have once been called a plucky heroine. She might not have the experience but, as a woman in love, she is even more determined and resourceful in the search to clear Guy's name. She's is one unconventional element in an unconventional mystery - which is more than satisfactorily resolved - that enlivens and brings great character to the proceedings.

Reading notes: I read a second-hand 1965 Panther paperback copy of Red Threads by Rex Stout. Although I've read Stout before, I confess that I haven't yet read any of his Nero Wolfe series. That's a gap in my crime fiction reading that I need to fill.