What do You think about The Sound Of Murder (1983)?
Featuring "Alphabet Hicks" this is a partially successful mystery revolving around the new potential of recorded sounds to complicate motives and murder. Unfortunately much of the drama revolves around Hicks realising something which should be plainly obvious to a group of people working in the field of sound technology.There's a romantic plotline which was teeth-gritting to me (male in ardent pursuit and female having transparent NononononoI'mnotinterestedatall "protests too much" fits is not a dynamic which amuses me).
—Andrea
Decent book with typically thin Rex Stout plot. Two women with identical voices threaten to upset a conspiracy in the plastics industry. Sure, Rex. However, Alphabet Hicks is a quite full character, although he hews a bit close to Nero Wolfe, and the dialogue is of first rate. I found the ending flat. Notably, it copies the typical Wolfe move of assembling all of the characters for a round of dramatic false but logical accusations in order to uncover the real killer. In fact, most of the thrills - and there are plenty - are squarely in the Wolfe vein but with Hicks substituted for Wolfe and Goodwin. I found this change agreeable, simply because I've read a lot of the latter and found it a welcome change of pace.
—Sloweducation
