Archie's background

It's well known that Archie is from Ohio, as told in several books. But I just got through reading "The Silent Speaker" for the 3rd or 4th time and I never noticed it before but it referred to Archie being a Major in the Army.

This is the first time I caught that. And it strikes me as unsual as I don't see Archie as a leader of many men (he does well in leading Saul and Orrie, etc.). I guess it's hard from me because he is such a subordinate with Wolfe.

Any know more of this side of Mr. Goodwin?

In the fisrt pages of Not Quite Dead Enough Archie is asked how long he was being a Major and he answered 3 days. Also it said he has well done in a "mess in Georgia" (i suposse the U.S. Georgia, nor the soviet) any way it looks as if he was working individually as a spy or something.

I don't know about the military ranks then i don't know if to be a major is compulsory leader people, any way, i have been watching a serie about the WWII and it happens that it wasn't difficult to rank up during the WWII because the superiors were dying

And anyway, he gets looped into intelligence work with Wolfe, as well as without, if memory serves me. (Cleverly saving Stout the necessity of wartime books ceasing or Archie being looked on negatively for lack of participation which would be, anyway, out of character.) So - Archie's more of an insubordinate subordinate, as usual, no matter who he's around.

Saul and Fred Durkin both saw wartime service abroad, as I remember.

And also, this books are of 1944 then it is still possible all of them (except Wolfe because in NQDE wants to go to war like in the WWI) were in the front before and that's why Archie is a Major

Ye-es, but I thought Archie said something about that in one of the books - complaining that he didn't get to see front-line action, whereas the others had. Of course, I may be remembering wrongly.

I hate to add to the vagueness, but of course, I will. ;) I seem to recall it being a huge issue between Wolfe and Archie. Archie wanted to enlist, Wolfe didn't want him to, then Wolfe pulled some strings and got Archie assigned to home duty with Wolfe, only with intelligence as well. Now, if I could only remember the facts and the book titles!

Linkmeister? Adonis Gulfoyle (probably messed up that name!)? Anyone?

The WWII stories are Not Quite Dead Enough and Booby Trap, published under the first stories title in paperback. I believe the original publication in September, 1944 by Farrar and Rinehart, included the story Help Wanted, Male, which is otherwise available in Trouble in Triplicate.

The first story has Archie returning to New York (from Washington) under instructions to convince Wolfe into assisting the army with a security investigation. Wolfe however, is determined to join the ranks as a "fighting man". Fritz is his determined companion in this endeavour. The early scenes are both comic and poignant, and are well worth finding for this alone. The antagonistic scenes between Wolfe and Archie relate to Wolfe's determination to fight as a foot soldier (with a very muderous intent) rather serve as an independent intelligence investigator. The second story centres around a pink grenade used as a booby trap for an army colonel. By this stage, Archie had convinced his superiors, that his intelligence work is best served as an assistant to Wolfe.

Help Wanted, Male is the least convincing of the three stories, which are themselves the least convincing of the corpus. This story is somewhat related to Booby Trap by way of shared characters.

Mrs Lee is right that Archie mentions somewhere in one of the war-era books/novellas that Wolfe has pulled strings to keep him from going overseas. He's not happy about it at all. I seem to recall him saying he'd thought up some clever things to say to Germans and Wolfe was keeping him from doing so.

Doesn't Cramer call Archie Major Stay-at-Home, or something, in Help Wanted, Male, or is that just the episode?

I think Archie in service, and most especially his rank, are weak points in the corpus; he should either have gone to war, or stayed at home in a non-military capacity. Stout was just being patriotic, but those books where Archie is in the army but not just kind of drift along.

Timothy Hutton did look very nice in uniform, however!

Thanks! I knew you all would come through! :)

Hey Mrs.Lee, have you had a chance to read (or even find) any of the Bruce Zimmerman novels: Quinn Parker mysteries?

I think these are right up your alley if you like Archie and Wolfe.

See my Library for titles all!

Nope, I forgot! I'm going to go put them on my wish page at another site so I will remember to look for them. Thanks!