Fer-De-Lance: A Nero Wolfe Mystery (Mystery Masters Series)

Rating:
Summary: The Best of All Nero Wolfe
Review: This one started it all and is the best one of all.

The old cliche, "Does he have a book in him?" applies absolutely here. Stout began his long writing career after a string of entrepreneurial business successes. He published this during prohibition and experienced a quick, deserved success.

Fans of the gargantuan appreciate many dimensions of Stout's clean, well-lighted place: Archie's wisecracks and lifestyle, his internal ruminations. But I like best Wolfe's observations about life, and this book is extremely rich in them - more so than any other book, I believe.

Among all the books, this one has the cleverest murder technique and one of the most subtle plot setups. Beware, though: it also contains some blunt instruments of racism and prejudice along for the ride.

What a great book, though. If you've never read any of the series, please start here if you can manage.

Rating:
Summary: Starting in the midst
Review: Where most famous detective series actually start at a beginning point--Doyle's Study in Scarlett actually starts with Watson meeting Holmes, and Christie's Mysterious Affair at Styles shows us Hastings meeting Poirot--this amazing series begins in medias res, running on all its cylinders. Archie Goodwin is drinking milk and making smart-aleck remarks; Nero Wolfe is more concerned with his orchid schedule and the quality of his beer than the conclusion of the case. It is amazing that Rex Stout created this wonderful world out of whole cloth; if you're familiar to the series, you feel right at home, and if you're new to it, you feel as if you haven't missed a thing.

The plotting here isn't particularly fabulous--the mystery involves the rather elaborate murder of a university president, and the suspects are narrowed to one well before the end. Nevertheless, the pleasures of this book are many. Stout combines Archie's gumshoe attitude with the eccentricity of Wolfe's genius detective--straight out of a British cozy. The relationship between the two--and their interactions, both with the secondary characters (the perpetually dispepsic Det. Cramer, Fritz, the haughty chef, Saul Panzer, the detective's detective, et al.) and with the various clients and suspects who present themselves are a joy to behold. As with the fun A&E video series, the enjoyment is derived from the attitude and the interaction, more than from the working out of the actual mystery. If you're a timetable-and-map fan, this series probably isn't for you. But if you like a memorable cast of characters interacting in perpetually surprising, always inevitable ways, this is a great place to start a wonderful series.