Her Forbidden Knight Audiobook By Rex Stout cover art

Her Forbidden Knight

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Her Forbidden Knight

By: Rex Stout
Narrated by: Jonah Cummings
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An innocent young telegraph operator becomes a counterfeiter’s target.

Once, the Lamartine Hotel was a quiet refuge for New York’s stuffy fashionable set. But by the 1890s, fashion has moved uptown, and the lobby of the Lamartine has been overtaken by natty young sports, who pass their afternoons with billiards or shows of noisy derring-do. Their preferred damsel is Lila Williams, a delicate young telegraph operator whose shyness so charms them that they resolve to defend her against any ill-behaved characters. They are about to face their fiercest challenger, who rides in the gleaming armor of a millionaire.

His name is John Knowlton, and from the first telegram she writes for him, Lila is charmed. He has money, good looks, and a criminal secret, and his insidious charisma will demand heroic effort from the knights of the Lamartine billiard table.

©1997 Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc. Historical Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Traditional Detectives Fiction Detective

Editorial reviews

Rex Stout, whose career spanned most of the 20th century, is considered one of the greatest mystery and crime writers of all time. His Nero Wolfe corpus, begun in 1934, spanned more than 30 titles and ended with Stout’s death, in 1975.

Her Forbidden Knight presents a story from Stout’s early days. Ably performed with a touch of gravel by Jonah Cummings, the story is set in a fashionable New York hotel in the 1890s. At the center of the tale is John Knowlton, a Gatsby-esque playboy, and Lila Williams, a shy and irresistible telegraph operator who finds herself in a tricky situation. The story is replete with quaint customs and antiquated set pieces, and provides a glimpse into the developing style of a master.
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I wasn't able to finish this one. The story just became more and more absurd as the chapters went on. To hold my attention, a book needs to be BELIEVABLE. There are a group of friends who hang around a pool room in a big hotel in New York... always seeming to be there, none really seeming to have jobs or any mentioned sources of income. Their actions as a group simply border on the ridiculous.... so it's just odd that the author seems to think these individuals could seem remotely real.

This thing is a real mess.

Story has serious plausibility issues...

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Rex Stout’s very first book, set in the same “mean streets” frequented by his later characters. You can easily imagine a young Nero Wolfe moving in into his brownstone a few blocks away from the hotel in which the present action’s centered. Though Stout’s early style needs tightening up, and the characters are stereotypically two-dimensional and melodramatic, the seeds of his greatness are detectable. The plot would make a great “Guys and Dolls” type musical. Though the ending was predictable, the local color and phrasing were enthralling, I couldn’t put it down.

A Damon Runyon-Style Confection

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Simple, but intriguing throughout. Stout is an excellent writer, and this period piece does not disappoint.

Fun listen for a Nero Wolfe fan

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A silly plot but fun, with great scenes and language from 1913 New York. It's good to be reminded of Rex Stout's pre-Neto Wolfe books.

Silly but charming

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Rex Stout is best known for his Nero Wolfe mysteries, but he has some other novels out there and this was a good one. I wouldn’t actually term this a mystery although at times it almost felt like one. Back in the 1890s in New York City, several men have taken it upon themselves to protect a young woman employed as a telegraph operator. She didn’t ask them to do this, but they have devoted themselves to her in a somewhat chivalric fashion and look out for her. She sees them as friends but gets annoyed when they interfere with her life as they do when they decide that a man who is romantically interested in her is not good enough for her. On the surface, they appear correct. They learn through one of their number that he is a counterfeiter. But they don’t know the whole story and they don’t know that one of their own has evil designs on the woman.

So this is a crime story, but not the crime the counterfeiting may lead you to think it is. And it leads to an exciting courtroom drama in which the young and extremely honest woman is expected to be the lead witness against the man who has captured her heart. There are a couple of nice twists and turns in the story and the ending feels like a solution Nero Wolfe would have come up with. I really enjoyed it.

Just as Good as Stout's Nero Wolfe Novels

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Good premise. Good reader. Just not as good as other Rex Stout stories I have read. Still worthwhile because the writer is better then many mystery writers.

Too many Gentlemen can cause confusion!

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This is a very fun book! It is also a complete departure from Rex Stout's usual genre. Jonah Cummings is a fine narrator. 🙂

This is a very fun book!

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Wish somebody had told this narrator that the word "a" is not pronounced "eh". It's pronounced "uh". And yet this guy pronounced every one of them like he's reading the first letter in the alphabet: A. "He had A beer and A sandwich and sat on A bench." Lordy.
Sounds like a small annoyance until you get to the 100th one.

This narrator

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This was Rex Stout’s first book, written 20 years before his first Nero Wolfe mystery. It’s good evidence that you can improve as a writer over the course of 20 years. The reading is rather stilted also - the narrator struggles to pronounce words, has extremely poor accents, and generally isn’t fun to listen to. The plot also struggles. As someone who has listened to all of Michael Prichard’s recordings of the Nero Wolfe books, I’d have to recommend against listening to this one.

It’s not Nero Wolfe nor is it Michael Prichard

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follow it through even though you wonder where it's going. I had no clue till about halfway through. the Finish kind of surprise me. but that's the idea of a mystery, right?

a slow starter but...

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