Friday's Forgotten Books: Nero Wolfe
Now that we're all done with Thanksgiving dinner and preparing to tuck into leftovers today, I'd thought I'd choose a book that celebrates food along with a really good mystery.
Enter Nero Wolfe. Fifty-six-year-old (a fact you may have not known!) overweight detective genius from Montenegro (although his birthplace was changed to the U.S. for one book)who liked good food (especialy shad roe), beer (about 6 quarts a day), orchids and his luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City. Wolfe employed:
Archie Goodwin--Nero's "legman", a PI who can recite verbatim entire conversations. He does the bulk of the investigating (because Wolfe doesn't like to leave home) and drinks a lot of milk. He's also responsible for mundane office tasks, like opening the mail. Archie lives rent-free at the brownstone.
Fritz Brenner--Nero's talented Swiss cook
Theodore Horstmann--an orchid expert who lives on the roof of the brownstone who helps Nero daily with his plants from 9:00-11 am and 4:00-6:00 pm.
There are also three private eyes that Wolfe hires to help out: Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, Orrie Cather. And remember Lon Cohen, the reporter?
And Nero is soooo eccentric with his yellow pyjamas, his inflexible schedule, his dislike of women, the way he closes his eyes and pushes his lips in and out when thinking.
Just typing these names and bits of description brings back so many fond memories for me. There wasn't a Nero Wolfe mystery I didn't enjoy. Not one. From the first one, Fer-de-Lance (1934), to the last, Death Times Three (1977).
Rex Stout wrote 33 Nero Wolfe books and 39 short stories. Journalist Robert Goldsborough wrote seven Wolfe books after Stout's death.
Oh, I am homesick for a Nero Wolfe. I'll have to re-read one. I've never read one of Golsborough mysteries. Perhaps I should do that. And I think I might ask for The Nero Wolfe Cookbook (it has 237 recipes!) for Christmas. It was also written by Rex Stout.
And I leave you with a super quotation:
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."~~Ray Bradbury
Please pop over to Patti Abbott at pattinase's blog for links to other posts for Friday's Forgotten Books. It's always a fantastic line-up.
sources:
wikepedia, answer.com, http://www.nerowolfe.org/htm/corpus/Time/index.htm