Target Practice

by Rex Stout

Book Overview

Brings together for the first time the complete short fiction that the author wrote for the popular All-Story Magazine.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786704969
• ISBN13: 9780786704965
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Length: 342 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Before Nero Wolfe, there was this.

Target Practice is a collection of early Rex Stout short stories which were originally published in the 1910's and 20's in the now long defunct "All-Stories Magazine." Some were published under the pseudonym "Evan Day." Stout had mostly disavowed his early work and didn't have copies of them in his personal papers after he died. A Stout fan came to the rescue a number of years later while researching Stout's early work. Apparently, he had to go to extraordinary lengths to find them. The only copies left in existence were in the United States Library of Congress. Not only did the library refuse to let the editor look at the magazines because of their fragile state, but they had no intention of preserving them either. Foolish really. It took intervention by a member of Congress to get permission to have the magazines copied. A transcription later and the stories along with a few novels ("Her Forbidden Knight", "A Prize for Princes", "The Great Legend" and "Under The Andes") were published. The tale of how the editor of this collection managed to get hold of this stuff after being hidden since the 1920's is recounted in the forward of the Carroll & Graf publication of "Under the Andes." For the fan of Rex Stout, the sixteen stories included in "Target Practice" are a must read. These are the early writings of Stout, and while not up to the level of the best of the Nero Wolfe stories, they are quite readable and entertaining. One can see the development of Stout's characteristic style and wit. Lest one be misled, not all of the stories contained in this collection are mysteries. Several of them ARE mysteries and they aren't bad. The rest fit into the realm of general fiction or perhaps suspense. Most contain twist endings as well. They're all well written, readable and quite entertaining. My favorite of the bunch is "Justice Ends at Home", the tale of a man accused of murder and defended by a lawyer who passed the bar only for the prestige of it, not actually to practice law. The story is fun and shows a good dose of the sharp plotting that Stout would use later in his Nero Wolf Novels. Like the best of those novels, it has a twist end that is both well written and clever. In short, I highly recommend this book to the Stout fan curious about what Stout wrote before he became famous. To the non fan, the stories are both readable and entertaining.