Rex Todhunter Stout (1886–1975) is a legend in the crime fiction world. He received the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award in 1959. The Nero Wolfe series was nominated as Best Mystery Series of the Century at the 2000 Bouchercon mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century.
Nero Wolfe is a fictional private investigator created by Stout. Using the same narration by sidekick device that Arthur Conan Doyle employed, Stout has Wolfe’s confidential assistant Archie Goodwin describe the cases of the detective genius. Stout wrote 33 novels and 39 short stories from 1934 to 1974, with most of them set in New York City. Wolfe’s residence, a nicely appointed brownstone on West 35th Street, features prominently in the series. His well-known reluctance to leave his home requires him to rely on others to do his investigative work while he analyzes their findings and draws conclusions.
Wolfe’s idiosyncrasies include an aversion to women, a love of good food, and a fascination with orchids. He employs a full-time gardener to take care of his beloved plants and spends several hours with them every day. The investigator with personality quirks was quite common at the time that Wolfe burst on the scene; consider Poirot and his enormous mustache as well as Philo Vance with his affected way of speaking. All three consider themselves superior to the rest of society in nearly every way, and therefore are not especially likeable characters, much like their predecessor Sherlock Holmes.
The Silent Speaker (Viking Press, 1946) was the first full-length Nero Wolfe book since before the U.S. entry into World War II. Stout found time to write some novellas during the war but not a full-length novel. The story plunges directly into the puzzle, with the murder of a government official at a large event where he was scheduled to speak. Two government groups were present, each inimical to the interests of the other and members of each group eager to accuse the other. Since nearly everyone was present in the meeting room, though, and had plenty of witnesses to their whereabouts, the police quickly ran out of viable suspects.
Nero Wolfe wangled a fat retainer from one of the groups to investigate the murder, just in time, as income in the brownstone had been sketchy, and he set about annoying everyone including the police. He still managed to require all of the suspects to convene in his office, where he did the standard culprit reveal.
This book contains one of the few instances in the books that Wolfe leaves his home, which he did unwillingly due to angering a police official one time too many.
Stout and his creation have an impressive following, even today, when the plots are sometimes outdated. I find Wolfe’s quirks too annoying to want to spend much time around him, but this series is considered seminal to the crime fiction genre and any serious student needs to read a few of the stories to become familiar with the characters and Stout’s style.
I was a huge Stout fan from age 14 on – he grew up in the same rural Kansas county as me – but his relentless misogyny wore me down. I proposed an essay on how Wolfe and Fritz were deeply closeted (or maybe not deeply) for one of the publications celebrating him – I can’t remember which one – but that didn’t fly. Oh, well.
Meanwhile, I was just remembering one of my own favorite forgotten writers this morning, Ross Thomas. I’m working on what was supposed to be a caper novel, but I don’t caper. I love the great caperers, though, and Ross was one of the best IMHO.
Thanks for this labor of love week in and week out. Sara
I have forced myself to read Stout over the years but I simply do not like Nero Wolfe. Too many other more interesting detectives to spend my time with. I always mean to read more Ross Thomas, I read one of his Oliver Bleeck stories awhile back and enjoyed it. Maybe this will be my prompt to go find more!
I am glad you featured a book in the Nero Wolfe series. Rex Stout is my favorite author and this is one of favorite books by him. (My favorite is Fer-de-Lance.) I have read all of the Nero Wolfe books multiple times, starting when I was in my teens. My favorite character is Archie although I have no problem with Wolfe. I like The Silent Speaker especially because of the character of Phoebe Gunther, a strong, confident, career woman.
Right now I am reading Three Men Out by Stout, which is a collection of three novelettes.
TracyK at Bitter Tea and Mystery
I know Nero and Archie have a strong following. And yes Phoebe Gunther was an unexpected character, Stout generally didn’t gravitate toward highly intelligent women. I knew the book was popular because of the number of editions I found, I think around 70. Fascinating! Thank you for giving me your perspective.
I used to collect old paperback editions of vintage mysteries, and especially the Rex Stout mysteries, but I only have three of those covers that you have shown in this post. I especially like the Fontana cover and the Penguin cover, neither of which I had seen before.
I have found Goodreads an excellent source for lists of editions. Often they have the dust jacket art as well but if I have the edition data, I can often find the cover on eBay or through Bookfinder. Locating dust jacket art is half the fun of writing these posts.
I discovered early in my reading that the Nero Wolfe stories are really about the adventures of Archie Goodwin—he’s the key actor and hero (at least he’s my hero). Nero Wolfe is there just to give him orders and move the plot along—and provide some comic relief.
Thank you for your excellent reviews.
That is an interesting thought, Bob! Archie is the man of action, certainly. Without him, there would be no story. I will give this idea more consideration. Thank you!