The Appeal of this book comes from its narrator (Archie Goodwin) who proves himself to be stubborn and full of himself, and quite aware of it. This trait keeps the story moving at fluctuating pitches. But besides its colorful array of well written characters, this book also has a somewhat suspenseful and at times humorous plot.

Another difference between this book and the standard mystery is that at the outset of the investigation there are no real clues pointing to any probable culprit. In fact, the very beginning of the book is devoted entirely to just trying to prove there is a culprit. And even in the end the clues are not obvious enough that you have the standard thoughts of "How could I have missed that?" However, this series takes place as stated before in the 1950's, and those not familiar with the aspects of this time period philosophies may misinterpret, or simply not understand certain points of the story. Besides the previously stated problem, I can find only one more. At the beginning of chapter 12 ( there are 17 in the book), the narrative begins in past tense even thought this has never happened before nor ever happens again,"...and because the murderer of Faith Usher had been convicted"(p. 151).

Rex Stout's Champagne For One is a highly entertaining mystery which I would recommend to any reader of mystery literature.