I don’t know if you all experience this, but sometimes I want to read something but I can’t decide what. I can’t commit to a new book or invest in a new world or whatever. I’m meh about every idea but I need to read something. In these cases, I can always read Rex Stout. It’s like how there is never a time that I won’t eat a green olive. I know exactly what I’m going to get and I still enjoy that tart, pickley goodness every time. I’ve read every Nero Wolfe book so I literally chose this one by typing “Rex Stout” into the Amazon search bar and picking the first one to come up. Re-reading it for this review was a treat. (mmmm olives)
Rex Stout was a prolific mystery writer in the Golden Age of mysteries. Stout was a vocal admirer of Sherlock Holmes mysteries and while his Nero Wolfe is an avowed misogynist (in that he is afraid of women but is often presented in the books with women he can’t help but respect), Stout himself greatly admired the work of Jane Austen and would create situations where Wolfe’s anti-woman stance was challenged. (Please note my homage to Austen in that run-on sentence.) I personally think his writing owes a credit to both Conan Doyle and Austen.
Fer-de-Lance was his first mystery, written in 1934, and introduces his Great Detective Nero Wolfe, a fat gourmet genius with a passion for food and orchids and arrogance to match his size. (fave quote: “I am merely a genius, not a god.”) He was also an agoraphobic with a rigid personal schedule who rarely left his brownstone. His leg man was Archie Goodwin, who is the wise-cracking narrator of the novels. Unlike narrators like Watson or Hastings, Archie does not have any reverence for his subject and presents him as the neurotic jerk that he is. The style is hard-boiled, but Archie is a smart, sassy, kind-hearted charmer, so it seems cozy. There is a recurring cast of side characters and the occasional call-back to earlier cases, but for the most part you don’t need to read these books in order.
In Fer-de-Lance, a poisonous snake, called the fer-de-lance, is sent to Wolfe during the investigation of the deaths of an Italian immigrant and the president of a prestigious college. The connection between these two murders reveals how and why the crimes were committed. There’s golf and food and plane crashes and blackmail and broads and gumshoes and banter and excitement. Honestly, I don’t want to say too much, it’s a mystery!
There are 33 novels and 39 short stories to choose from in the Nero Wolfe series. I recommend them all. They are so full of delicious olive-y goodness.
