Plot It Yourself by Rex Stout
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Loved this book! I think it’s because Rex Stout had obvious fun writing it, and as a writer and long-time reader of Stout’s, I enjoyed the plot very much. He took swipes at publishers; he gleefully exploited the endless author-publisher tension; he was self-deprecating in his choice of pet words by “X” like “aver” (I chortled over that one because it is most definitely Stout’s pet substitute for “said” in many of his books); and the ending was stellar.
Oh sure, typos were liberally sprinkled throughout the ebook version I read — missing periods, a name spelt incorrectly, and aside from obvious typos like short instead of shot, some words I had no inkling what they were supposed to be — but it almost seemed deliberate, like a poke in the eye from the past to present-day claims by traditional publishers that only they know how to proofread and edit well and only their books come error-free. This was one of Stout’s best.
