And Be a Villain (British title More Deaths Than One) is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1948.

The negative publicity, and the low bank balance at tax time, brings Nero Wolfe into the case — and into his first recorded encounter with a shadowy master criminal.

And Be a Villain is the first of three Nero Wolfe books that involve crime syndicate leader Arnold Zeck and his widespread operations.

"[1] Cyril Orchard, the publisher of the weekly horse racing sheet Track Almanac, is poisoned with cyanide during a live soft drink commercial on a popular radio talk show.

The police have identified several suspects, including the show's host Madeline Fraser; her business manager, friend and former sister-in-law Deborah Koppel; her on-air side-kick Bill Meadows; Tully Strong and Nathan Straub, representatives of the show's sponsors; script-writer Elinor Vance; Nancylee Shepherd, the head of Fraser's fan-club; and F.O.

Although his initial investigations seem unpromising, Wolfe eventually learns that a separate bottle of the beverage being advertised was provided for Fraser, identified with tape around the neck.

His investigations reveal that the magazines were in fact the front for a sophisticated blackmail operation which targeted its victims using the threat of slander to compel them to purchase subscriptions for a year.

With no further leads, Wolfe sends Archie to Fraser and her entourage with a fake letter implicating Elinor Vance in order to try and shake a response out of the suspects.

Discovering the letter on Archie, the police threaten to charge him with obstructing justice, but they are interrupted by a phone call from a rival radio station.

However, while the blackmail syndicate had previously created false claims about their victims to slander them, in this case they had unwittingly stumbled upon the truth – Fraser had in fact murdered her husband.

The novel ends with Wolfe receiving a phone call from Zeck, congratulating him on solving the case — and warning him not to interfere in the crime lord's affairs.

And Be A Villain contains several examples, including the following: In Chapter 8, Professor Savarese provides a formula for the normal distribution curve, touting it as a tool that could be used in crime detection.