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WHO WAS THE FIFTH MAN?

The lawyer, the jeweler, the art critic, and the oil-company man...self-possessed, independent Lora Winter has had a child with each of them. But when one of these men drives up to her house with a fifth man in the car, Lora runs to hide. That’s how this extraordinary novel opens—and by the time it ends, you’ll have pieced together a masterful psychological jigsaw puzzle that is miles from a traditional crime novel, but whose desperate characters nevertheless resort to kidnapping, blackmail and possibly even murder.

Long before he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, before he created the immortal Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout wrote this gripping novel, published in 1930 and then lost for more than 90 years. Hard Case Crime is thrilled to give the book its first publication in nearly a century and to give today’s readers the chance to discover one of Stout’s richest and most unforgettable stories.

• First publication in almost a century!
• First publication ever in paperback
• Cover painting by renowned film and book cover illustrator Robert McGinnis

"Rex Stout is one of the half-dozen major figures in the development of the American detective novel."

— Ross Macdonald

"Splendid."

— Agatha Christie

"[Stout] raised detective fiction to the level of art. He gave us genius of at least two kinds, and a strong realist voice that was shot through with hope."

— Walter Moseley

"One of the most prolific and successful American writers of the 20th century...The writing crackles."

— Washington Post