Sally Colt (aka Sally Corbett)

Created by Rex Stout
(1886-1975)

“Sally… was one of the two women who, a couple of years back, had made me feel that there might be some flaw in my attitude toward female dicks.”
— Archie Goodwin

SALLY COLT (sometimes known as SALLY CORBETT) is a trim, blonde, blue-eyed, Manhattan-based P.I. who appeared in several Nero Wolfe adventures and sometimes filled in for Lily Rowan as Archie’s dinner and dancing partner (in which role Archie allows is “agreeable”).

She made her debut in The Hand in the Glove (1937), written by Rex Stout as a vehicle for her boss (and sometime ally of Wolfe), private eye Dol Bonner, and returned in “Too Many Detectives,” a 1956 short story wherein she, Dol, Wolfe, Archie and several other New York-based operatives are involved in a wiretapping scandal. She also appeared in Plot It Yourself (1959) and The Mother Hunt (1963), two Nero Wolfe mysteries.

Although she never appeared in any of her own books, she could have been a contender.

SHORT STORIES

  • “Too Many Detectives” (September 14, 1956, Collier’s)

NOVELS

  • The Hand in the Glove (1937; aka “Crime On Her Hands”) |Buy this book |Kindle it!
  • If Death Ever Slept (1957)
  • Plot It Yourself (1959) | Buy this book
  • The Mother Hunt (1963)
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Paul Bergin for the lead.

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