Death of a Doxy is, on the one hand, classic Nero Wolfe. Orrie Cather, occasional legman for the great detective, is in hot water. Orrie is being held for the murder of Isabel Kerr, a showgirl he has been seeing, and Wolfe, viewing it as a personal obligation, takes the case, albeit reluctantly. The water is muddied by evidence that the woman was attempting to blackmail Orrie with proof of their trysts. Additionally, Isabel's sister, Stella Fleming, seems more interested in avoiding scandal than in seeing her sister's killer brought to justice.

On the other hand, it is with Julie Jaquette, Isabel's best friend, that we observe a rare phenomenon. At the conclusion of their initial interview, Wolfe says, "I have the impression that your opinion of our fellow beings and their qualities is somewhat similar to mine." And then he does something almost unprecedented in the Stout oeuvre: "He got to his feet. He almost never stands for comers or goers, male or female. And he actually repeated it. 'I wish you well, madam.'" From Wolfe, this is more than a compliment; it is a lavish tribute. Later, when Julie's life is threatened and she takes refuge in the old brownstone, she spends two hours with Wolfe in the plant rooms among the orchids. Need it be said that Stout is subtle, that orchids have long been held as a symbol of sexuality, that the image of Wolfe and Julie Jaquette in the hot, humid plant rooms for two hours with all that rich dark soil and all those orchids is particularly evocative? And when she comes down she is calling him Nero! Of course, nothing happened, because later Julie complains to Wolfe, "You get on my nerves because you haven't got any." Or did it happen on a purely subliminal level, the kind of seduction, after all, to which Wolfe would be most susceptible? And did he later rebuff her? This is not the misogynistic Nero Wolfe we've come to know and love.