I first encountered Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe the summer before my senior year of high school while I was camping out in California’s Sequoia National Forest with my good friend Cecil Nelson Widdifield. Now, this was a real he-guy outing. Two men’s men seated around the campfire pondering the meaning of life while puffing on big, smelly cigars and savoring the subtle bouquet of Red Mountain Hearty Burgundy. No electricity. No indoor plumbing. No shaving. No girls—none would come with us. No matter. This was what men did.
Mostly, we froze. Our campsite was a good 9,000 feet up in the mountains. When the sun was directly overhead it warmed the forest floor to a toasty 50 degrees. Nights and mornings the temperature plunged into the 20s. We were desperate for hot showers and our mommies (not necessarily in that order), but we were too proud to come down off that mountain. So we stayed up there for five days and nights wrapped in our sleeping bags, teeth chattering. We read a ton. We’d brought along an excellent supply of he-guy literature. Ian Fleming’s James Bond was this particular teen’s absolute favorite. I loved everything about Agent 007. His cars. His women. His Beretta .25 in the chamois holster (I pronounced it cha-moize). But after three days we’d run through our supply of Bond adventures and were down to the handful of other books Cecil had grabbed off his father’s shelf. One of them was a Nero Wolfe—Some Buried Caesar, as it happens.
From the moment I opened its cover I knew I had happened onto something truly special. I immediately wanted to be Archie Goodwin. I wanted to know Nero Wolfe. Who wouldn’t want to know Wolfe? A man who has his life exactly the way he wants it. A man who is sure of who he is and what he knows—and what you don’t. I was hooked instantly, a goner. I even tingled all over, though that may have been the onset of frostbite. A lifelong love was born.
You don’t read the Nero Wolfe books, you belong to them. Archie and Wolfe aren’t mere characters—they’re real people. Think about how well you get to know Wolfe, all one-seventh of a ton of him. Think about how quickly you can rattle off his traits and preferences. Likes: The London Times crossword puzzle, his orchids, his beer, Fritz Brenner’s mouth-watering meals, the old town house on New York’s West 35th Street. Dislikes: Leaving the old town house on West 35th Street, women, physical exertion of any kind, discussing business while eating, shaking hands with strangers, anything that causes a break in his daily routine, which is anchored by the four hours he spends tending his orchids with Theodore Horstmann. Wolfe is gruff, grouchy, and superior. He scowls, he snorts, he bellows. When he’s thinking deep thoughts he pushes his lips in and out. You know the man as well as you know a member of your own family. His house is your house. The plant rooms. The pool table in the basement. His office, with the red leather chair for his most important guests (and yellow chairs for everyone else). You even know how many steps there are from the sidewalk up to the front door—seven.
And then there’s Archie, our storyteller, who is everything Wolfe is not. Archie is young and chipper, a ladies’ man, a wisecracker. He does Wolfe’s legwork, sleeps under his roof, takes his criticisms and, on occasion, his praise (“Satisfactory” is the great detective’s highest accolade). Wolfe is a master of deduction, a pure intellect. Archie is a man of action and something of a romantic. Indeed, his answer to what’s wrong with our civilization is that we’ve quit drinking champagne from ladies’ slippers. It’s safe to say that Archie and Wolfe would be lost without each other. I know we readers of crime literature would be lost without them.
I think the highest compliment you can pay any murder-mystery novel is to say that you’d enjoy it even if nobody got killed. This is definitely the case with Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfes. The characters are so well drawn, the relationships so engaging, the dialogue so sharp that they make for highly entertaining reading without any crime whatsoever. Ah, but crime there is, of course, and at this Stout was a master. His plots are absorbing and baffling, yet remarkably free of contrivance. They’re seamless. They’re what we who write mysteries aspire to.
The one you are holding, Murder by the Book, is the story of three murder victims—a legal clerk, an editor, and a typist—and of the unsolicited novel that may or may not tie their deaths together. This one happens to be a particular favorite of mine, I guess because it takes place in the world of New York publishing. The publishing scene has changed some in the forty years since Stout wrote it. Quaint, tweedy little family-run houses like his Scholl and Hanna have largely given way to huge, multinational media conglomerates. The business isn’t nearly as gentlemanly or personal as it once was, and it’s a lot more about money than it is great literature. All of which makes it even more appropriate to ask the vital question Stout poses here: Is there such a thing as a manuscript worth killing for? To be honest, I know of at least two agents and a half-dozen editors who would promptly reply yes—provided they were sure they could get away with it. But that’s in the so-called real world. In the world of Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe is on the case. And when he is, nobody gets away with anything.
Through the years I’ve come back to Wolfe again and again. It never seems to matter if I’ve read the book before. If anything, Wolfes improve on a second reading. They are a precious resource. If you’re new to them, Murder by the Book will make for a splendid introduction. Pull up a chair. If you’re an old friend, then Nero Wolfe needs no introduction whatsoever and I’m merely holding up your progress.
I leave you to it.
—David Handler